Catch Your Breath
by Lang Noi
Summary: Inspired by Silver Queen's "Dreaming of Sunshine." Ripples turn into waves and crash upon the shores of what is and what could be, and I was just someone else who got pulled under. I didn't realize that even a drowning person makes waves of their own. A SI OC story.
1. Humble Beginnings

What happens when you die?

Bit of a question or the ages, isn't it? It's one of those questions that's followed sentient beings around ever since the first one dropped dead of a bad banana or something, and it's pretty hard to say that there's ever going to be a definitive answer. I'm not convinced that that _Far Side_ cartoon was right, what with the surgeons faking out some poor guy under anesthesia, but whatever the cliché Hallmark thing that's supposed to happen after death is, it didn't happen to me.

Well, actually, since my family was varying degrees of Protestant Christian or Buddhist or some variation in between (don't ask), I don't think we really came to a consensus other than to say that we'd probably be reunited with grandpa and grandma and everyone else that died before us. Given that I was twenty-going-on-twenty-one last I remember, I figured I'd have a lot of ancestors probably demanding to know why I didn't have a boyfriend yet, or maybe others wanting to know why I only got three-fourths of the way through a non-medical degree before dying. Sure, I wanted to be a teacher and got pretty close for being only two years out of high school, but I'm not sure my distant ancestors really cared and I'm almost glad I didn't meet some of them—every family has its crazy people and some of them scare the crap out of me to this day.

For the record, my death was boring, pointless, and probably had people huddling in groups and nodding to each other about how expected it was. Doesn't matter too much what it was—fact is, I still don't know what happened. I was sitting at home watching TV, and then nothing.

That's all in the past now, anyway. After all, I'm dead. Didn't end up meeting any of those relatives—and I'm regretting _some_ of that—before being dumped into some warm, if boring and occasionally thumping, darkness to await judgment day. Maybe? I'm not particularly religious in any organized sense—never have been—but I figured that'd be it for me and I'd…I dunno, just hang around. Maybe get ground up into the force which moves the planes of reality—yes, I'm a passing fan of _Dungeons and Dragons_ and you can shut up now, because the fate of the Faithless is no goddamn joke when you're possibly qualified for it. It was boring, but probably better than eternal damnation for not being a particularly good or bad person. Purgatory doesn't seem to involve a lake of fire, and I'm okay with that.

Or I was. I guess I never really considered three really important points, in retrospect.

One: Never assume a given religion had it right. I'd made the assumption of figuring that all those stories about Grandma watching over us from heaven were true. Turns out it was the wrong family belief system to go with, at least for me.

Two: Infantile amnesia only works out if you don't actually have the mental capacity to remember things. Hence, infantile amnesia and not general, all-purpose amnesia. I would kill to take this second fact back to whoever made it up and throttle them with it.

Three: Any unexplained physical sensation _after death_ should be investigated. I mean, now I know that the constant, faint itching sensation I felt must have been the development of my internal chakra circulatory system. It was building me up, so one day I'd be able to pull off the insane ninja magic bullshit that made this world work. The itch stopped being so intrusive later, when my coils stabilized from the rapidly developing stage they were in before birth. It was sort of like the development of neurons, I think—you've got the potential storage space for everything you're ever going to have room to learn when you're born, and they don't grow back. If something had happened _in utero_, like what I now suspect happened with Rock Lee, I'd be permanently crippled as far as chakra goes. I always feel a little like there's warmth under my skin that no one but me can know about, now. I can feel the same thing in other people, but it's probably less because I'm actually talented in my new life and more because, when you get down to it, chakra was _foreign_. Like having an extra limb or the sudden ability to see the entire light spectrum. Magic ninja bullshit wasn't exactly a staple of my old life, so of course I'd be extremely aware that now it was.

Er. Would be. I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Imagine this as an adult—suddenly the warm darkness is getting a bit too tight, a bit too unstable, and then there's a pulsating wall of muscle forcing you to move around or be squished like a grape. It's a little like how I imagined being eaten by a snake would be like, when I'd been five and too young to understand how snake jaws didn't detach _that_ much. All I knew at the time was that it was too small and I was too big and I needed to _get away_ before I was turned into taffy. Funny thing about that, though, was that none of my limbs seemed to want to work the way I wanted them to and I ended up getting pretty squished regardless. And then I was out.

One of the things that I read about, _before_, was that a baby's instinct was to inhale immediately upon feeling air on his or her face. It works pretty well for porpoises and whales, who are pushed up to the surface for their first breath by their mothers, but it was one of those things that nearly killed me twenty years early in my old life because the nurses hadn't gotten the fluid off my face completely. My parents told me that story a _lot_ growing up—I think they were amused by the whole situation, after the fact, even if they were terrified at the time. Now I got to experience it myself because my lungs weren't quite listening to me just yet.

_It is fucking terrifying._

But between the fact that the nurses _here_ had been careful enough to clean me off and clear my airways, the warm if scratchy towel, the swaddling, and a bunch of hands on my body that were absolutely huge and lifting me up, my lungs got a pretty good workout with my first scream. I was genuinely terrified, even when the hands carrying me didn't end up dropping me. I think I kept screaming even when I was placed on my new mother's chest, until I started suckling. My body, unsurprisingly, still wasn't listening to me.

I was effectively blind—though my vision in my old life was actually_ worse_ than what I could see now, with less light sensitivity and more depth perception—my hearing was hypersensitive due to what had been months of effective sensory deprivation, I could feel everything from the swaddling blanket to the heat of my mother's skin, and my sense of taste was pretty much nonexistent.

And I that was how I was born again, more or less.

I'll skip over the whole _thing_ with potty training and stuff. Frankly, I'm almost glad that I didn't have any control over my body then—the developing human brain isn't designed to have the nerve impulses of a twenty-year-old human running through it anyway. I could at least justify the memories of needing an adult's help for _everything_ as being due to true helplessness. It made me feel more grateful and less humiliated. My memories of that time are about as detailed as if I'd been an actual adult, but the sheer _boredom_ means even my not-quite-physical adult brain and memories sort of lets it all bleed together. It's like anything else after enough time goes by—nostalgia essentially means filing off the edges of stuff that was boring or dull or mediocre, leaving only extreme highs or lows in its wake. So, out of it, I mostly got a deep need to be in control, to never be helpless again, and a fierce love for my parents for putting up with my needs for so long.

And a very strong conviction never to have children of my own, but that's not exactly new for me. I'm still quietly terrified by the idea of being solely or jointly responsible for the future survival and happiness of another human being, but now I just added the whole issue of diapers to the pile of reasons to use birth control.

More on that later, though.

Originally, I'd been a fairly quiet child. I mean, I cried since that's what babies do, but you weren't going to be finding me screaming my head off at three in the morning as an infant in my last life unless something was _really_ wrong. I guess I had my parents trained to respond to the little squeaks I made, sort of like how cats get their owners to do things for them. Here, I was still pretty quiet as a rule, but the feel of my chakra settling in my coils never stopped being _there_. It's sort of like someone poking you every ten minutes or so, just to remind you they're still around. Or maybe like having someone lean on your shoulder. It was annoying and only occasionally comforting, so I think I was a bit noisier out of sheer temper more than anything. I still tried to have a proper screaming match with the world _only_ when I actually needed something, to save my parents' sanity.

Mom was…I think she was ill somehow, honestly. As my vision improved and I could actually see the person carrying me, I'd look up and see Mom holding me most of the time. I'd gurgle at her, to say hello, but her smile back was always a little strained. She was paler than I remember myself being, once upon a time—and since I didn't get out a hell of a lot, I think I might have been an expert on it. She was pretty, though. She seemed a little thin and waiflike, but her eyes were dark and kind when they weren't sunken due to my periodic wakeup calls, and her hair was a straight black curtain around her face. She was delicate. I still loved her, though, in a way only children can, because she and Dad were my world and she loved me back.

Dad seemed older, a little wearier with gray already in his hair and scars on his jaw. He had a wider, more solid build and darker features, but I was wearing him down as surely as Mom just by being a baby. It was only because of him that I realized my predicament at all. He'd been holding me, since Mom was in the hospital again for some kind of post-birth follow-up thing. I had an idea of what that could entail, in all its gory detail, so I don't think I would have asked even if I could have made my vocal chords work voluntarily. Dad was making faces at me, trying to get me to copy him, and I was waving my little fists around just because I could.

And I guess my vision was finally good enough for me to look at what I was holding, once I grabbed it. I had his forefinger in a chubby fist and I wasn't about to let go, whether he tried gently pulling loose or not. It was an accomplishment! Baby steps toward success and independence happened all the time, and as an adult in a baby's body I was going to enjoy as many as I could figure out.

Not like I had anything better to do, anyway.

It took me a while to recognize the vest Dad was wearing as a flak jacket, even when I was looking right at it—hell, if I hadn't been familiar with the _Naruto_ series as a whole, I doubt I would have realized what it was—and I only _really_ got the totally unintended message when I caught the gleam of metal on his forehead. I couldn't tell what symbol was on it, though—infant eyes aren't good for distances of more than about eight inches or so.

I don't think I panicked, but the thing with being a baby is that there's only one reaction for anything negative. I started sniffling. _Dad_ started panicking. Guess there was a reason Mom was the one who held me most of the time.

"_Gekkō-san, daijōbu desu ka?_" someone asked, and my dad's head turned toward someone else. The rest of the conversation passed by a little too quick for me to keep up.

I was only a week or two old, all right? Cut me some slack for having trouble with a language I never learned before. Most of the other stuff I'd chalked up to just the fact that my new ears were a little sensitive and my brain was probably scrambled from being born. The fact that I know any Japanese at all is a miracle of coincidence and annoyance—watching subbed and raw anime wasn't compensating for the fact that in my old life, English was my first language and my old memories were not helping me adapt at all. They might actually be getting in the way.

"_Daijōbu, Keisuke-chan?_" Dad said, presumably to me.

…Yep. That's my name: Keisuke Gekkō, born on July 10th. I even have the baby footprint and birth certificate to prove it. I found out later that Mom's name was Miyako and Dad was Wataru. I get the feeling that my parents wanted a boy first. Don't you? I also had the sudden feeling I would grow up a very angry child, like a boy named Susan or something. Maybe it would lead to me trying to destroy the world, like Mandark. I'd have to convince people to call me Kei or Keiko for the rest of my life.

Or maybe I could grow up into ten feet of anger in a five-foot frame for other reasons entirely!

I'd bet on the latter, personally.


	2. Oh, Crap

The thing about chakra is that it is _everywhere_. Sure, most of what sensor-class shinobi can perceive is generally human chakra, and that's what makes them so useful. It's all that most normal shinobi can sense, either, if on a lesser scale. But thanks to the Sage of Six Paths and the Ten-Tailed Beast, the entire world is infused with chakra that, if you touch it without the proper training, is going to mean being turned into a stone frog. The normal stuff is plenty dangerous for most people, who tend to stick to what works for them and won't backfire horribly if they're shinobi, and tend to go along in their boring lives without ever noticing it if they're not. I can't sense natural chakra, by the way. I only know it exists because I watched a certain TV show way in the past.

Anyway, how is this relevant? The fact is, though I don't have any particular aptitude for natural chakra (and holy crap am I glad for that), I'm _constantly_ aware of my chakra. While my body's had it since before birth, hence all the itching, my mind keeps saying that this is not normal. I need to focus—a bit—in order to use my chakra, where most people just do it automatically. I'll need to train as I grow in order to be able to do some of the other crazy ninja bullshit people like, say, Sasuke can do without even so much as thinking about, but I think I might have an advantage as far as initial control goes.

It's a lot easier to manipulate something when you actually know exactly how much you're messing with at a time. It'll be an advantage later on, but as a toddler it just pissed me off.

Anyway, as a baby, I ate and slept and cried a lot. I mean, I love my parents here and I'm sure they made my infancy as comfortable as possible, but it didn't make it any less _boring_. I couldn't do anything on my own, other than babble like a brook.

This, eventually, led to me coming up with my first words. I think I was six months old—the same thing happened last time around. Unsurprisingly, my first words were "Mama" and "Dada." In that order. Mom was serenely proud, in a kind of smug way, while Dad seemed to want to do some kind of victory dance because I'd actually addressed him on the same day.

I was sorta…toddling around by about a year old. I could only tell because of the birthday bash they threw for me—when it comes to babies, the waking world is pretty hard to keep track of. Days blend into weeks into months, mainly because not a whole lot happens from a deeply bored adult's point of view. I was trying to get into things like cupboards or bookshelves, like children are supposed to, but Mom and Dad had apparently thoroughly child-proofed the house. The living room was the only place where I had the ability to roam, and certainly no one was going to let me do so without supervision—Dad's a ninja, after all, and I sometimes saw Mom pull a practice sword from above the kitchen window.

I would gum someone to death for the opportunity to read something just for a distraction, even if relearning how to read would probably be triple the pain it was the first time. Didn't have teeth yet, then. Also? Teething is a pain and should never be voluntarily undergone a second time. Most people have infantile amnesia to thank for never having to deal with that. And I don't.

A lot of toys got gummed to death, mostly to solve the issue of teething but also because I was bored out of my tiny toddler skull. Learning to read kanji would be a _bitch_. Being a toddler at least gave me the option of stalking my parents and pestering them to read to me, though it'd be a while before I graduated from blocks.

Speaking of the birthday party, I guess Dad and Mom are pretty popular. I didn't know the names Miyako and Wataru Gekkō from before, but _they_ knew everyone with a kid around my age, or so it seemed.

The birthday party involved cake, though it had a kind of red bean filling that I know I hadn't liked before being reborn. The adults stood around and talked shop, because that's what adults do when the kids are apparently safe and well out of range of any weaponry, and I spent the party gnawing on one of my presents. Literally. Still teething and all that.

I think, in total, I ended up with a whole set of those pompom hair tie things, a teething ring, a rubber kunai (hint hint) that would probably also be used for chewing on (hint failed), three sets of baby clothes in varying shades of purple and pink (could be worse, like _orange_), a stuffed tiger I privately named Tigger (who was not orange), a new bottle, and a set of block puzzles. What anyone would want with that last item, I have no idea—I didn't like those things when I was growing up the first time, either.

There were other kids there, too. I didn't recognize Genma until his mother called his name—he's around four or five—and I ended up crawling over and demanding that Ebisu play blocks with me. Not that he agreed gracefully—he's three—but he could make a steadier pyramid than I could and tried to show me how it was done. I think he had the knack for teaching, even when he was little, though he was a little pompous about it.

Still ended up knocking the pyramid over, though it wasn't his fault at all. Being a year old means being clumsy.

There were other children there, too, but I don't remember seeing them often after the party. I guess Ayumi-chan and Miyuki-chan and Tatsuo-kun all decided to stay civilians. At least, I hope they did—the idea that they died is too ugly to linger on.

I _think_ I might have seen Sakumo, Kakashi's dad, show up and leave within a ten-minute period. I don't think his social circle and my parents' one really overlap, but he's apparently a nice enough person to stop by and offer balloons and steal cake. Kakashi, if he was there, was probably the little white-haired bundle I only caught a glimpse of.

Balloons are the best thing in the world and no one can ever tell me otherwise. Especially when Dad did the helium trick and made all the adults burst out laughing.

As a side note? I'd figured out what time period I'd been born into.

When I burst into tears in the middle of my own birthday party, Dad panicked again and tried to soothe me while Mom politely ushered everyone else into the kitchen and then the yard, saying I was just tired from such a long and exciting day. It was even true, in a way, but that was nothing compared to the sheer magnitude of the situation I found myself in.

It's one thing to think I've been reborn into a shinobi world, even with the sheer overkill certain people can sling around like nothing. It's another to be born into Konohagakure, where most of the main plot of the series seems to gather. It's another thing again to be born during the gap between two Shinobi World Wars.

It's another thing altogether to realize that my age group is going to make up the front ranks of the Third Shinobi World War.

Incidentally, that was the day I discovered my ability to suppress my own chakra signature down to below my parents' sensing threshold, which freaked them out plenty when they realized that their kid was kind of a chakra void when upset. I think that after that, they started to realize that I was going to be a really, really weird kid.

Maybe that was why they tried for a second one.


	3. Catalyst

I was waddling around the house at age two and some months when I finally got a good look in a mirror, and could see the person I would be. Before that, my hair hadn't even bothered to grow in for some stupid reason, meaning that the only way I could tell what my hair color could even be was by looking at my parents and making a guess. I mean, I obviously wasn't going to be blonde or a redhead, but I hadn't been last time around either and I was curious to see what I was built to be.

My hair was short and kind of tufty, even if Mom had pulled it back into this dumb little ponytail that sat at the top of my head like a palm tree with pompoms. I wasn't as pale as Mom, which makes me think that either my parents' coloring was averaged out to get mine or that Mom really, genuinely was sick with something. I had a wide face, mostly because of the baby fat, but the way my face was developing would probably mean that I would have an average look to me, aside from my jet-black hair and dark eyes. Dad's body type didn't seem to be dominant, exactly, and it was hard to tell with toddlers anyway.

Oh well. I guess I'll see when I grow up.

That was about when I heard Mom drop something in the bathroom. I toddled over to figure out what had happened—partly because I was worried but mostly because I was curious, as all children are, and said, "Mommy?"

Mom didn't answer. Mom always answers, and yet this time all I got was a sob.

I probably don't need to say how much that _scared the shit out of me_.

I headed for the bathroom as fast as my stubby little legs would carry me, bouncing off a wall or two along the way, calling, "Mommy? Mommy!"

I found Mom sitting on the floor of the bathroom with her hands over her face. On the floor in front of her was an open box, as well as a white-tipped stick that was starting to send a rather suspicious feeling through me. I wasn't quite sure what to think, though, because Mom was both crying—a little—and smiling as she scooped me into her lap.

"Isn't it great, Kei-chan? You'll be a big sister soon!" Mom said into my hair.

I scooted around in her lap so I could hug her properly, listening to her heartbeat and imagining the heart of my new sibling—or siblings, if there were twins—beating along with hers and mine. "Does that mean Mommy and Daddy are going to love the baby more?"

"Of course not!" Mom said fiercely, surprising me. She pushed me back into the crook of her other arm, so she and I could look eye-to-eye without having to let go of each other. "Mommy will love you both with her whole heart! But I don't want you to have to play alone anymore."

It was strange, to be afraid of this new life as much as I wanted to hug it. I was a bit lonely—I can't actually remember any point in time when I was without my brother, before I died—but it's a child's need to be reassured that kept me there, clinging to Mom. I did love her, because I could guess why she'd been crying—she was afraid that being pregnant again could endanger her _and_ the baby, but she wanted to keep us all safe and happy so much that my heart was breaking for her. I didn't want her to have to give up her life for that—it seemed selfish, I guess, because she obviously wanted the baby.

I honestly don't even know what I thought at the time—in the end, it became more of this massive jumble of feelings that didn't really end up proving anything to me other than that I was incredibly indecisive.

Still, if Mom wanted the baby, I wasn't going to say no. I kept turning around and expecting find someone who wasn't there, now that I was old enough to walk and wander from room to room. I kind of hoped for a brother, despite the ways it could all go wrong (excluding sibling fights, which were expected and normal).

In the end, it actually didn't.

By the time I turned three, Dad had managed to get me to the point where I could read on my own. This was mostly because I had taken to bugging him half to death about it every time I could, since knowing that a sibling was on the way only increased my need to know about the world I was slowly getting big enough to explore. I'd babble about how I wanted to teach my little sibling everything ever, including what kind of book had the best pictures and which way was the best way to stretch and where the really nice food vendors were—the kind that would give free food to cute kids, of course. I was going to be the best sister ever.

I _might_ have wanted a hustler for a little brother. Nostalgia was biting me pretty hard.

Dad was starting to teach me other things, too. Little exercises—cat's cradle, stretches that I probably wouldn't have managed to pull off in my old life, and so on—designed to test and enhance fitness. Though I think the whole cat's cradle thing was for dexterity, and with hand seals being a priority for ninjas, I kind of wondered why I'd never thought of it before. It would be easier with a sibling to practice on, since Dad's hands were so big, but it was fun anyway. He even gave me a picture book on more of them, and it wasn't long before I was pestering him with new questions for the exercises in the book.

I think he started me on the chakra control exercises solely so I'd wear myself out. He _was_ a ninja after all, and it can't be fun to come home to a babbling three-year-old with severe word vomit after a long day at the outposts. I was in the "why" stage, even if I saw some civilian children who turned it all up even further than I did.

When it came to Mom, I noticed that she got tired more often and quicker than she used to. It scared me because I _knew_ she wasn't especially healthy, but she went to the doctor often and there didn't seem to be any real problem. If I'd really been three, I think the other main thing I would have noticed was how Mom's belly kept growing and her lap kept shrinking, until I couldn't sit in it anymore and Dad would have to bounce me on his knee until I got dizzy.

On the due date, Mom went into the delivery room alone and Dad sat with me outside. I had my toys with me—I still liked to chew on rubber kunai, for some reason—but I just sat there and stared at them for a while. Even my book about the Sage of Six Paths and the Tailed Beasts (censored to hell and back, of course) seemed boring with all this nervous energy in the air.

I yawned, rubbing at my eyes and feeling my toddler body start to succumb to the inevitable—mainly an early bedtime I'd never managed to get around, since I had ninjas for parents. Well, at least one ninja—I'd never seen Mom in a chūnin vest.

"Keisuke-chan, bring that book here and I'll read a story for you." Dad said. I crawled up onto his leg, book in hand, and he opened it to the page on the Sage and his two sons.

I was probably asleep before he finished the first page, but I woke up again when Dad carried me to see the new baby.

Only we didn't end up in the maternity ward. We went to the Neonatal ICU.

Mom was there too, and though she was paler than normal and was being wheeled around by a nurse all in white. She looked okay, even though it must have been less than an hour since the birth, so what was wrong couldn't have been with her. She'd be in the normal Intensive Care Unit or something otherwise. Instead, we all turned to the window and looked into the room full of incubators, though only three were occupied, and Mom held my hand, even though Dad was still holding me.

Dad said, "Keisuke-chan, do you see the box on the far right?"

I looked. I couldn't read the writing on it from this far away with bad lighting, but I could see a tiny form in the plastic. There were two ports with gloves attached to them, so no one would get close enough to make the baby sick with adult germs, and I thought I could see enough of the wires and tubes running into the box to make a guess that something was very wrong.

"That's your little brother, Hayate." Dad said, and Mom let go of my hand so he could lift me onto his shoulders.

"Why's he in there?" I asked, leaning over with my tiny hand fisted in Dad's hair. "I wanna see him!"

Besides, the name Hayate Gekkō was setting off warning bells I hadn't even known I had.

"He's…he's having a little trouble breathing right now. He's a new baby—they're pretty fragile." Dad said, hesitant. "We'll take him home as soon as he's better."

Little Hayate started coughing, sending the medics in the room into a frenzy of activity I couldn't follow.

Of all the things I remember from my first life, the clearest memories involve my family. It'd taken two weeks before I even realized I was in Konohagakure, and some of the earlier details about the plot of the series had sort of fallen through the cracks. I knew that, for example, Kakashi was pretty important to the plot in a lot of ways—I have my favorites among the cast, after all—and that the story was ultimately Naruto's, and so on and so forth. But if you asked me in my old life about some of the minor, one-shot ninjas—especially if they showed up in filler arcs or movies—I'd have probably needed a minute to exercise my Google-Fu and figure out who you were talking about.

But with the breathing tubes and the incubator, and the strange echo of a lower, more insistent cough running through my head, I knew then that my baby brother was the same person who ended up being the first named Konoha-nin killed for Orochimaru's Chūnin Exam invasion, in the far future. He'd be a lamb to the slaughter, despite his skill and speed, and all for knowing just a bit too much. The man who killed him would become an ally, and no one would ever know he'd done it.

I don't think I ever really knew what hate was, until that moment.

Or fear.

* * *

A/N: So, uh, this is a bit of a late welcome from me, Lang, also known as the author and kind of a crazy person.

As you might have noticed by the rate that your Alerts/Favorites keep picking up, this story is going to be updated fairly frequently. I hope to keep a similar pace for the rest of the fic, though it'll be dictated by by new job schedule, a little. Most of them will be pretty short segments in Kei's life, spanning timeskips as necessary. I hope that doesn't deter you from enjoying the fic!

Also, review if I'm doing well or doing hideously wrong and ought to be clubbed over the head with a fish. I can't tell what you're thinking unless you drop me a line, after all!


	4. Winning Hearts

I started having chronic nightmares not long after we finally got to take Hayate home.

Children generally don't become the center of their own unconscious narratives until they're eight or so, when the world of me versus not-me is clearly defined and suddenly it seems like everyone decides to be the hero of their own story all at once. I still had the occasional dream where I was just watching the world go by, like clouds, but when Hayate finally replaced me in the nursery was when the dreams of my old life started coming back with a vengeance.

I don't blame Hayate for it. He couldn't help having sensitive lungs or being a baby. He couldn't help being a part of my memories from before I died. The fact that my imagination wanted to combine my baby brother and the sight of the dead special jōnin on the rooftop, with blood everywhere and crows pecking at his thoroughly mangled corpse? Wasn't his fault, but it ate into my brain all the same. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night, shaking with grief and rage too big for my body, and I'd creep into the nursery to make sure he was still breathing.

Mom and Dad both noticed that I wasn't getting a lot of sleep—it's pretty hard to get anything past a ninja when you're barely capable of speaking in complex sentences—but I think Mom was just glad I wasn't jealous of all the time she and Dad spent with Hayate as he got bigger. A normal child would have fussed, or whined, or maybe demanded a refund (which is really more my memories of my old life talking than anything). I wasn't a normal, fussy little girl around Hayate.

I didn't want to be a burden when Hayate needed them all hours of the day. I couldn't do that to any of them.

Knowing my brother would (or perhaps I should say _could_) grow up to be a dead man walking killed any envy before it could pop up.

That said, when the all-consuming worry eased off a bit—which was mostly when I was awake and could see him wiggling around on the living room rug as he figured out how to make his limbs listen to him—I was hopelessly attached. Hayate wasn't a _big_ child at seven months, and he wasn't quite as solidly built as I was, which might have been due to me being a first-born kid who'd had our parents' undivided attention for almost three years. But he was curious and sharp-eyed despite the amount of time he kept himself and everyone else awake with his persistent little cough.

God, I hoped it wasn't whooping cough. The doctors hadn't freaked out the last time my parents took him to the hospital, but I'm also not sure if they know what whooping cough _is_. Granted, I'm not totally sure I do either, but suddenly all of those vaccinations I got as a baby started being really, really relevant and worrying in their vagueness.

"Haa-chan?" Getting his attention could be a pain, sometimes. He was sucking on a rubber kunai not unlike my old one, mainly because it was too big to choke on while I was around and could get it out of his mouth, and occasionally gumming on it. If I'd really been three, I wouldn't have been at all trustworthy when it came to my baby brother's safety, but I wasn't and my parents apparently figured that as long as one of them was in the house, we'd be okay.

Man, when he started teething for real it was going to be _hell_.

And all I wanted was to see if I could get him to grab onto a rattle. I figured, hey, he's squirming around on the carpet and trying to grasp things with his tiny fingers anyway, so it had to be worth a shot. If I could get him to stop focusing on the kunai, anyway.

He looked at me at the sound of my pet name for him, at least. It was better than what Dad had managed—I think the way I'd been so hyper-aware as an infant had spoiled him on the whole child development thing. Hayate was probably at least a few months from being able to speak actual words, if he followed the normal progression for boys (as far as I knew, anyway).

"Rattle." I said, waving it. He looked at me, then at the rattle. Then back at me.

Hayate made a complicated, indecisive sound around the kunai.

"Haa-chan, what?" I asked, and he spat out the kunai to wiggle after the rattle. I didn't move it much—it's not fair to tease someone who doesn't really have any motor skills, even if he is my brother and will probably grow up to be a pain in the ass someday.

You know, if he doesn't die before that. That thought scares me so much I can't think sometimes.

"Kei!" Hayate said.

I blinked, pulling back a little. Had he just…?

"Haa-chan?"

"Kei!" Hayate said, starting to turn a little bit red from frustration since the rattle wasn't in range anymore. I immediately gave it to him and he stopped pouting, waving it around as well as he could given that he was still a baby. I scooted over so he could reach me if he wanted, and he ended up drooling into my pajama bottoms a bit when he abandoned the rattle to gnaw on the kunai again. I didn't really mind.

Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the talking thing. Hayate is officially a genius in my book.

"Mommy! Haa-chan talked!"

That night, at least, I didn't dream about Hayate's death.

* * *

A/N: I think this is actually the shortest chapter of the lot. As Keisuke gets older, she'll have more substantial interactions with the world around her. Including Hayate. And Hayate will be able to interact with the world more meaningfully as well. :)


	5. Live by the Sword

The minimum age to enter the Academy is five. Or, failing that, a student has to turn five within the next calendar year. Generally, only students with parent endorsements head there that early, meaning that orphans, civilians, and people who just don't want their kids to end up on the front lines before losing their baby teeth (i.e., most people) join later, with less experience. It's sort of like moving to a new school district. Early graduation is possible, though uncommon in peacetime, and passing a series of assessment tests by a ridiculous margin was the main reason for it. People like Yamato and Kakashi could do it easily, and I was worried to some degree because, while I grew up with ninja parents, I still didn't consider myself especially fit or intelligent by the freakish standards set by people like them. The only reason I even considered the Academy at all was a result of a few thoughts colliding in my brain, when Hayate turned two and I was five-plus-a-few-months.

One: Even though I was probably being slowly driven insane by recurring nightmares of Hayate's death, I couldn't just _let it happen_. Not without fighting it. Hayate might have been just an unfortunate casualty of the plot a lifetime ago, but here he was my little brother and I would kill _anyone_ who dared touch him. The ferocity of my love and protective streak surprised me at first, because in my old lifetime I'd been on more-or-less equal terms with my brother and never really needed to defend him from anything in the peaceful world I remembered. But the more I thought on it, the more it stayed with me.

Two: I didn't want to be helpless anymore. Five years of essentially complete dependence on my parents had put me off the concept for good, even if Mom was starting to teach me kenjutsu using a pair of practice swords out in the training fields. I wasn't great, but between that and Dad starting to teach me the basics of the Academy taijutsu, I was off to something of a head start.

Three: Despite what some members of the village could get up to, I really did love it in Konoha. It wasn't the strongest village—that title belonged to Iwagakure or Kumogakure—but it was one of the vanishingly few places that _didn't_ fuck up quite as thoroughly as, say, Sunagakure. Konoha wasn't perfect by any means, but I didn't know enough about the other villages other than their treatment of their jinchūriki to really tell how they behaved. And that Minato Namikaze would end up slaughtering most of them _en masse_. I wanted to protect the village my brother and I would grow up in, because there was a spark here worth protecting. Hopefully I wouldn't die in the attempt.

It's probably one of the worst motivations for becoming a ninja: fear. It was still _mine._

My parents still decided that I wasn't going to join the Academy until I was eight. In retrospect, they must have known that I could easily test out of the first few years, and they were sure that they could teach me enough to be a genin just between them. It did keep me from interacting with my peers who were already enrolled, but I think they were more focused on making sure that I wouldn't die instantly after I graduated.

By the way, when I said I wasn't great at kenjutsu or taijutsu, I'm not really sure what "great" even means. I'd never seen a shinobi younger than the age of eight in the field, even though I knew a couple of people who would be just that when they got to that age, and definitely no one with extensive kenjutsu or taijutsu experience. Hell, if it wasn't for my parents, I have to wonder how I would have gotten _any_ physical conditioning done. I'm more prone to worrying myself silly than training myself into a coma, as a rule.

On the other hand, Mom brought Hayate to training one day—apparently the supply of genin babysitters was running low, no matter how horrible that thought is—and that changed things up quite a bit. Not because of anything Mom or I did, though.

I'd only been training for about a month in kenjutsu, so we weren't exactly going all out. I mean, I was completely getting my ass handed to me every single moment of it, and Mom wasn't even winded, ever, but it was still clearly a step in the right direction.

"Again, Kei-chan, we're sticking with shinai at this point." Mom said, holding her shinai up like a teacher's collapsible pointer. Mom didn't look pale and tired like this. She looked like a female samurai, all pride and power and I-will-beat-the-shit-out-of-you-if-you-look-at-me- cross-eyed. I think saying that I wanted to learn kenjutsu put fire back in her, though my backside would probably live to regret it.

"Yes, Mommy." I said, but I kept looking at Hayate, who was sitting underneath a tree and holding a shinai the approximate size of a wakizashi. He was swatting at the leaf litter with it. Mom's shinai slashed through the air in front of my nose, nearly as fast as a real sword, and I squeaked.

"Here and now I am your sensei, Kei-chan." Mom said seriously. She held her shinai in a ready stance. "If I didn't think you could handle this, I would have let your father continue teaching you only chakra control and basic taijutsu, but as my daughter, I think you have what it takes to go all the way."

I felt my face heating up at the praise. Yeah, I could _do_ this. It'd be difficult and painful, but I couldn't give up!

"We'll move on to bokken as you advance," Mom continued, "because even if the bokken isn't a katana, there's plenty you can do with a solid length of wood and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Yes, Mo—er, Sensei!" I chirped, excited. Sure, she'd probably beat me silly again, but that was part of the training.

"Good. Now, let's see your stance." Mom said.

The thing about kenjutsu—or at least the version that shinobi used—is that you need to be highly mobile. There _is _a starting stance, for the beginning of formal duels and for centering yourself, but by the time a shinobi was using a sword out in the field the rigid swing-snap-retreat routine was useless except for moving meditation. It was mainly used to build discipline and strength in new students, but the average genin was likely to have double or triple the physical strength of a non-shinobi once chakra enhancement came into play. There was no other way that we could send genin on bodyguard missions from bandits, given the average age of an academy graduate nowadays—they'd get slaughtered.

Feet apart, with the right leg ready to lead, hands placed well apart on the shinai's handle for leverage, and chakra quietly reinforcing my muscles. That was the only way to practice, even if I wore myself out more thoroughly that way. I'm sure that any actual aspiring shinobi kid wouldn't have bothered with the chakra part, mainly because most of them couldn't even feel it backing each and every one of their movements, but I need to _make_ using it second nature.

I figured I'd actually start to learn the mobile stuff once I had the basics down.

"Strike-one!" Mom barked.

I jumped to obey. "Hah!" I shouted, snapping the shinai out sharply and making it emit a slapping sound as the bamboo slats touched each other from the force of it.

"Strike-one! Block-one! Duck! Backstep! Backstep! Backstep! Strike-two! I didn't hear a snap on that last one, Kei-chan! Strike-two!"

Mom was kind of a drill sergeant.

After a while, there was sweat pouring down my round face and I was breathing harder than normal. I wasn't really fit—sure, I was more active than I had been the last time around, mostly because there was nothing else to do unless I wanted to move into a freaking library for the rest of my continued existence—but I was also five-going-on-six. I had a right to the baby fat I had, okay? And Mom was making me work myself to the bone for, hopefully, a bit of an edge when it came to the Academy.

Basically, my endurance wasn't great and Mom called practice to a halt just before I collapsed.

"Well done, Kei-chan!" Mom said brightly, patting me on my probably sweat-soaked shoulder. I was wearing a training gi, but that meant pretty much nothing when there was lots of physical activity and Konoha had the kind of summers I was never going to like. Hot summers, to be specific. With no air conditioning in sight. "For someone who's just started, you're doing great."

"T-Thanks, Sensei." I said, panting.

"Hah!"

Mom and I both blinked at the sudden intrusion of a higher voice and automatically turned to see where it was coming from.

Hayate stood under the tree—somewhat wobbly, but he's two and could be forgiven for many things—and snapped his little practice wakizashi out again. "Hah!"

The sad thing? His form, given time and another foot of height, would be better than mine. I could tell even then.

"Haya-chan?" I was incredulous. He was a _toddler learning kenjutsu_.

"Kei-nee! Mommy!" he called, running over to us unsteadily.

Mom picked him up automatically, smiling widely. I took the shinai out of his hands, so he wouldn't make Mom see stars, but it was clear that she didn't care too much about that. She lifted him higher, twirling and making him giggle.

"You want to learn kenjutsu too, Hayate-chan?" Mom asked, as she nuzzled his face and he played with her long black hair.

"Ken…?" Hayate asked, pausing in his ruffling of Mom's ponytail. "Wha's that?"

"Swords, Haya-chan!" I broke in, grinning. "You'll be a big boy soon, and you'll get to learn kenjutsu with me and Mommy!"

"I can!" Hayate said, though I wasn't sure he knew what he was agreeing to.

"Mommy, let me show Haya-chan what to do, when I learn more! I wanna help!" I said firmly, more sure of this than anything in my life.

"Of course, Kei-chan." Mom said, and hugged us both.

I don't really know how much I'd ever really be able to teach him that he couldn't surpass me at in short order. But I guess that the true mark of mastery is whether or not you know something well enough to teach it to someone else, right? Even if that someone else is my two-year-old brother who's probably a blade prodigy and will be more dangerous with a katana than I ever will.

I was feeling pretty good about my goals in life, then. The Academy was going to be cake.

Then Hayate started coughing again and the magic was gone.

* * *

A/N: My rationale for the Academy is partially based on that of the school district I grew up in, the fact that it's supposed to essentially churn out citizen soldiers and not special forces (given that it seems like most genin don't exactly specialize in C-ranks on up and tend to stay close to home), and what I understand of how the heck everyone seemed to be graduating early in canon.

Beginning of the series: Naruto and all the kids close to him in age graduate at 12/13, or about when sixth grade in most American schools would be. Even the supposed geniuses, Sasuke and Neji.

Well before the series: The Sannin, Kakashi, Gai, Yamato, Anko, Minato, Kushina, and a dozen others all graduate the equivalent of a grade or two (or six) early. Either every one of these kids is a certified genius of varying levels, or wartime lowers the standards of who gets to be a genin. Or both.

Kyuubi Attack and thereabouts: The kids all seem to graduate around age 12 or so. Iruka, Hayate, and others graduate at a "normal" age and go on to be normal-ish ninjas. Kinda. The only exceptions I know of during this time period are Itachi, who graduated at age seven, and Sai, who became a genin at age nine. They both were promoted at age 10 and joined ANBU (officially, in Sai's case) later.

Basically, if you're going to buck the system before the Kyuubi attack, more power to you. After that, though, it seems like the regulations were tightened a little and only those with unusual circumstances (such as Root pushing the kid through) or clan backing could push through. So, Kei's going to be the equivalent of a homeschooled kid. ;)


	6. Driving Force

Lessons with Dad got more focused the closer we got to the year I actually joined the Academy. Sure, after a certain point he pronounced me sufficiently durable and skilled to keep up with the non-major-clan kids and flipped to focusing on chakra control, but I think he had his reasons, and those reasons probably revolved around not wanting me to graduate _too_ early. I don't blame him for it. The idea of being sent out on infiltration missions as a kid—and I _hoped_ no one had ever looked at a six-year-old and thought they could do it, though with people like Kakashi and Yamato running around I really wouldn't put it past the creepier assholes around here—scared the crap out of me. I was still planning on being enrolled and testing out of the previous years when I turned eight, and my parents seemed okay with that. That would give me anywhere from a year to three years to graduate, depending on both the how compressed the curriculum became as war approached and on my own completely-not-legit brilliance.

Anyway, around the time that Dad got around to asking me what I thought I wanted to do with all this chakra control, I'd been mulling the whole ninja thing over pretty much on continuous loop. Dad had noticed my _very_ cautious use of chakra and eventually asked why I spent such a long time gathering it before ever even trying the leaf-sticking exercise, to which he got the answer of hyperawareness. I guess if Hayate got to be a kenjutsu prodigy—and as time went on and he soaked up Mom's lessons like a sponge, I think any doubt about that faded from my parents' minds—I could be a half-decent genjutsu-type kunoichi.

Er, shinobi. Let's not get into how badly I suck at kunoichi-specific stuff just yet.

I was thinking about a possible specialization, since Dad asked and I hadn't really thought about specifics before, and I ended up looking possible options up in books before I gave him an answer. Being a genjutsu-type shinobi, or a sensor, seemed well within my potential. If I had a sword for close combat, then I could probably figure out how to take out an entire opposing team. A sensor's range wouldn't compete with a Hyūga's Byakugan, but there were only so many Hyūga clan members in active positions, so I'd be able to find a spot for myself if I wanted. I was studying on this for about two days total, with the thought always in the back of my mind, when I got a wake-up call.

I'm not sure what brought it on. It could have been the heat wave we were having, or something in the water. I still don't know. I wish I did.

Hayate and I shared a bedroom, once he was out of the nursery and my parents decided to revamp it into a playroom. It mostly meant getting rid of the crib and buying another bed for Hayate in my room. I slept across the room from him, still dreaming of his death every time my brain said he wasn't breathing loud enough—_blood everywhere oh god what happened to him no Hayate-chan please wake up_—but it wasn't as bad as before. I wouldn't have to get out of bed to make sure he was still alive.

But one night, I was woken up in the middle of a perfectly normal dream. It was so hot then, hot enough that I'd asked my parents for a bamboo mat to sleep on since the sheets were sticking to my skin, and Hayate's breathing was a little more labored than normal. Mom got a mat for him, too, and a thin sheet so he could feel like he was covered up, and we suffered through it together.

Waking up from stage three sleep is a pain normally, but my heart was pounding in my ears that night. It wasn't like I was sleeping well when the weather turned muggy, but it still shouldn't have involved jolting awake like someone had stuck a needle in my foot.

I rolled over, sticky with sweat and feeling in dire need of a bath to wash the stress away, and looked over to Hayate's bed. "Hayate-chan?"

Hayate was coughing again. I got up and walked over to him, feeling his tiny childish chakra blaring an alarm that must have been too subtle for my parents to detect. I brought a faint blue glow to my hands, which was kind of like my night-light, and looked at him. Then I turned on the light.

I screamed.

Hayate has weak lungs, relative to what you'd expect from the son of a pair of shinobi. He catches a cold every time any of our neighbors' kids get one, and his is almost always worse. His breathing is abnormally shallow, though I'm not sure my parents can hear it with the same precision that I can. I'm the paranoid one when it comes to my little brother.

All I know is that Hayate was rushed to the hospital within two minutes by Dad. He even spent his third birthday in the hospital, sick with something that sounds like whooping cough crossed with pneumonia and maybe poison. His lungs were giving out on him and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Mom looked paler and gaunter than ever, like all the life she'd shown in training had been sucked out as surely as Hayate's breathing hitched, and Dad seemed stretched-out and helplessly angry.

I sat by his bedside more often than not, reading either aloud or to myself. He had an oxygen mask on, with little tubes running all over his skinny chest and a couple in the back of his left hand, and he was unconscious most of the time, but I read anyway because even if he wasn't able to hear my words, I thought he _might _be able to hear my voice. I tried telling myself it was like back before he was born, when the only things he'd really hear clearly were Mom's heartbeat and the voices of those close to her, like me. Mom sat with me, picking up the story when my voice cracked, and Dad stopped by every hour on the hour, looking more and more haggard as he demanded to see someone or something. I couldn't really keep track of it all.

I was six years old. My brother's hand was so small and pale in mine.

Normal doctors didn't have any real way to fix what was wrong with him. They prescribed medicines and hemmed and hawed about, but ultimately what they do isn't _healing_. It's an attempt to kill the possible bacteria or viruses that were killing Hayate, but he was three. The bacteria and viruses probably had a stronger hold on life than he did. I hadn't been there for his vaccines so I had no idea what he was supposedly resistant to and no one was going to tell a six-year-old civilian girl anything.

Hayate was there for a total of two days before a medic-nin—I could tell by the headband, after—stomped into the room with a glare that was two degrees short of making things spontaneously combust. "What's going on here?"

I squeaked and my free hand went scrambling for the shinai strapped between my shoulders before Mom's hand closed over mine.

"Yamaguchi-sensei, is there anything you can do for my son?" Mom said sharply. I'd never heard her voice like that, all steel behind the weariness and stress. She had a champion glare, too.

Also, where the heck did she know this guy from?

"Hand me that chart." Yamaguchi-sensei said, rather than answering. Dad snatched it off the foot of the bed, shoving it into the medic's hands.

Yamaguchi-sensei's eyes swept over the charts and all the notations, marked only by the occasional grumble. My parents' eyes never left his face, but I turned back to Hayate and squeezed his hand. He didn't wake up, but I thought his eyelids might have twitched a little. Heck, he was probably under so many different kinds of sedatives that _nothing_ would wake him up.

"Yes, I can."

Those were the magic words I'd been waiting—_praying_—for.

What happened next was a blur, due as much to my exhaustion as the medics' speed. I was still a child, despite my adult memories and thought processes, and Dad had to pick me up so we could all get out of the way. What I remember involves four medic-nin bending over my unconscious baby brother—each with their hands glowing with pale green chakra that _hummed_ to my advanced chakra sense—the tubes in Hayate's chest being removed for some reason or another, and my parents leaving the room with me still in Dad's arms.

I don't know how long I was asleep—or possibly unconscious, given how hard I'd been pushing myself to stay awake beforehand—after that. But I do know that when I opened my eyes, it was because Hayate had stuck a tissue under my nose and was tickling me. He was sitting in Mom's lap, while I must have been in Dad's. There weren't any tubes in him anymore, and just a few wires remained connected to monitors that were beeping steadily and without stress.

He looked paler than Mom and more worn-out than ever, his eyelids drooping, but his breathing sounded _miraculously_ even. He was smiling at me. He let me hug him as hard as I could, even if I sort of made him squeak for air by the end.

When we could finally bring Hayate home—_again_—I resumed my ninja lessons.

"Daddy?" I said, as we worked on calligraphy on the kitchen table. Calligraphy was like art, and I think my handwriting here was better than it had been back before I'd been reborn. Even if I got ink everywhere unless people put newspapers down first.

"What is it, Keisuke-chan?"

"I wanna be a medical ninja."

Dad didn't argue with me about it at all. He got me books, since he wasn't a medic himself, and Yamaguchi-sensei would at least stop by the examination room every once in a while to give me pointers when we brought Hayate in for check-ups. I wasn't going to be the next Tsunade, but if I could keep people alive long enough to make it to a _real_ medic, that's what I'd do.

* * *

Review responses:

Guest: Given the apparent death rates of shinobi during wartime conditions, graduation standards would have to be relaxed just to account for how many bodies remain on the field. Either replacing the dead people or in becoming the new corpses. If only three actual new team formations is the standard in peacetime (which I'm not exactly sure about) per year, and the actual number of possible teachers doesn't grow substantially from year to year, I'd assume that _most_ new genin end up either in specialized corps or apprenticed by the truckload to more experienced ninjas.

Basically, if you can't pass Kakashi's test, you don't go back to the Academy. You instead join the ranks of the Genin Corps, whose whole purpose is to run the day-to-day chore missions so money keeps flowing and upper-level shinobi get to keep doing everything to keep the village intact. Or I suppose you could join any number of programs like the medic corps, and so on. All to keep moving forward and to stop having people repeat Academy years unless they're genuinely _just not getting it._ I imagine that can't happen too often to support the other numbers, really.

Or, since Kishimoto has told us practically nothing about how the shinobi world _works_ when it doesn't revolve around main characters, it'd be my best guess and the method of operation for this story.


	7. Explanation Sensation

So, here's the thing about medical ninjutsu: It's _all_ about control.

Not even joking. While some of the bigger techniques for worse injuries can require a medic-nin to pour chakra steadily into a patient for up to four hours at a time, the important part of rituals, seals, healing techniques, and the anatomical considerations involved makes everything come down to chakra control crossed with mental discipline.

"Kei-kun, _stop bullshitting the fish test._"

"Yes, Yamaguchi-sensei."

Mental discipline is not exactly something I have an abundance of. Neither is chakra, primarily because my physical body was still seven, and mixing my abundance of spiritual energy with my physical stamina basically had a lack of the latter as a limiting factor. Assuming that the levels of my spiritual energy remained consistent throughout my lifetime, as the lopsided data was likely based on my adult soul, I'd have to wait for another eight years before I was anywhere near my old potential power. It was worse than trying to figure out phosphorus fertilizer proportions necessary for maximum crop yield.

Not that I needed to know that in my new life. Or my old one. It was just a relevant thought. Making a mockery of science tests is fun.

Speaking of which, medical ninja training involves slightly less paperwork, studying, and knowledge of human anatomy than becoming an orthopedic or emergency room surgeon. I was only a year in, and I could already see my sanity going down the drain worse than usual.

I still had the dreams, which always ended in blood and screams and death. Maybe the familiarity was wearing some of the edges off, but at least my waking hours were less affected than they had been in the past. I had a feeling that it'd be the best I could do on my own.

Anyway, back to the fish test.

One of the earliest exercises in becoming a medical ninja involved trying to keep a fish alive out of water for about five minutes. A wannabe medic-nin ought to be able to keep the fish alive, healthy, and capable of returning to the water with no ill effects. We weren't trying to raise the dead, which usually meant the damn thing was flopping around everywhere because that's what fish do. It was smelly and slimy and an animal that didn't want to die of asphyxiation.

Which was why I'd come up with what Yamaguchi-sensei called "bullshitting the fish test."

I removed my hands from the trout's gills and the water I'd held against them splashed uselessly to the ground. The fish immediately flopped out of my hands, off the table, and back into the lake I'd pulled it from.

Cupping things—especially water, for me—with chakra was a basic exercise in what amounted to expulsion and molding. Most people chose water or dirt since those things stuck to skin anyway, and since fire or lightning would involve getting layers of skin or nerves being put through hell with no benefit in a medical sense. Wind would have been the easiest and likely the most useful in the field for medical purposes, but I used water because my subject was a goddamn fish.

Keeping the water oxygenated had been as easy as agitating it with my chakra. I wasn't perfectly aware of the CO2 levels of the water in my grasp, but I could adjust the cycling speed and watch my "patient" for a reaction. Was I doing it right? Was I killing it?

That said, because medical ninja were supposed to be able to pull oxygen into the fish's lungs and blood manually via chakra control alone, my method was a cheat because I was making my fish do all the grunt work of respiration. I was only enabling it.

Oh, and sedating it, with my chakra slowing the transfer of signals in its fish-brain, so it didn't freak the fuck out and flip all over the place. I didn't have any interest in having to chase my fish around the shore.

Technically, I suppose that what I was doing might have been considered more advanced because of the multitasking I was doing, but it was still cutting corners _somewhere_.

"Begin molding chakra in your core, again." Yamaguchi-sensei said. "Do not form any seals until I tell you to."

I nodded and closed my eyes to focus. I also shrank my chakra signature to almost nothing to reduce the…well, the best way I can describe it is "noise." In the electronic sense. Like radio static, or that stuff on a TV screen that says your signal's shit and the digital device of your choosing needs a thumping. It was a lot easier for me to focus my own chakra to a knife's edge when I wasn't constantly feeling the random discharges my coils were prone to when I wasn't paying attention.

"If there's one thing you should take away from our lessons, Kei-kun, it's how to approach a new case." Yamaguchi-sensei said, walking around me as I stood at the table. I could feel the odd tingling sensation that made up his chakra signature as he went—he had a lightning affinity, he'd said, and he had to work around it every day he went into the Intensive Care Unit. "You will be _thorough_, you will be _precise_, and you will be _right_. You don't get a chance to screw up in the field! If you do, someone could _die_.

"Hell, even if you get everything _right_, you may not be able to do a damn thing. You may fail to save a patient in the field—you _will_ fail to save someone in your career. Failing is a part of life. Sometimes there just isn't anything to do, and your patient is too far gone for anyone to save." His voice went low then, like he was remembering something painful. "My goal is to make it so that you don't make a habit of it."

"Yes, Sensei." I said, keeping my eyes closed.

"We will begin hand drills now." Yamaguchi-sensei said, as though my voice had pointed him in another direction to rant. "On my mark, and _do not channel chakra_."

"Yes, Sensei."

"Dog."

I folded one hand under the other, palm against the back of it.

"Tiger."

Thumbs together, index fingers raised with the tips touching, and the rest of my fingers interlaced.

"Ox."

And so on. There are twelve basic hand seals, though anyone who pays attention to shinobi in fights (or is an Uchiha with a Sharingan) will notice that individual shinobi have their own particular variations. While these tend to vary based on village and clan, _real_ modification of seals tends to mean something special. Techniques such as the Shadow Clone Jutsu use what I refer to as the Cross seal, while Haku Yuki's claim to fame was his ability to use half-seals in combat as thought they were full ones.

What Yamaguchi-sensei understood, and what I did for different reasons, was that hand seals were primarily mnemonics.

The most dangerous advanced shinobi barely need to use seals for their favorite techniques. Orochimaru hadn't needed the use of his arms to take on the other two Sannin and get away alive (with considerations made for drugging and phobias). They can pull off the same thing by merely molding their chakra the same way as a shinobi using seals. While undoubtedly slower without the memory aids (and more dangerous when it came to the types of techniques that could _really_ backfire), it had the distinct advantage of making it damn near impossible to predict or copy the technique involved unless one was both equipped with a Sharingan and either a sensor or blessed with a Byakugan.

So I guess that the hypothetical offspring of a Hyūga and an Uchiha would have a better shot at deciphering Orochimaru's techniques than most.

I was learning, even at age seven, to dissociate seals from chakra molding. Not that I wouldn't have probably done it anyway—my chakra sense made me all too aware of how my chakra was supposed to move for the techniques that I knew. Eventually, I might have been able to basically bullshit the seals to any technique as soon as I had the feel of it down.

You know, if I managed to live that long. Or avoided pissing off Yamaguchi-sensei too many times.

"Rat! Come on, Kei-kun, you can do it faster than that!"

Or if I managed to get through his training without wanting to murder him.

* * *

A/N: This is technically an aside to the plot, but now you know what Kei was doing when she was seven.

No, Kei doesn't know Yamaguchi-sensei's first name. :P


	8. Shatterpoint

The thing about the Academy is this: while students _do _learn all of the necessary skills to become rather crappy genin, it's also boring as hell.

Don't get me wrong—ninjutsu (what there is of it), taijutsu (if your family style doesn't blow it out of the water), and kunai throwing (which is something I resolved to learn, since Mom wasn't exactly teaching me to throw things anywhere Hayate could see and then copy me) are all very important to a shinobi. The thing is, any kid with decent clan backing and enough ambition can cheerfully substitute the math, the weapons training, the taijutsu, and the chakra control exercises with their homemade schedule. The Uchiha clan's training regimen—particularly when it comes to kids with a high chance of developing the Sharingan—is completely insane. Kakashi probably got trained by his dad starting from whenever he learned to walk. I don't even know what the heck was up with Yamato and I really don't want to.

It's just that I was twenty-eight years old (if you counted both lifetimes) in my head, and an adult mind crunches through the text-based stuff way faster than the average eight-year-old. I wasn't as quick when it came to things like taijutsu, since I sure didn't have any memories to fall back on aside from Mom's training, but that was okay. Everything else I could learn from Dad or Mom or books.

I was a regular home-schooled genius.

That's what I tell myself, anyway. There _are_ genuine geniuses here. I'm just not one of them.

I don't think the other students knew what to think of this strange girl who could sleep through half the lessons and still ace the tests. Fact is, I wasn't all that concerned with the tests—the only penalty for failing was in the class standings, not in real life just yet—and instead focused on my constant sleep deprivation. Even if I hadn't been doing well by the books, I'd have needed to take naps to make up for all the nightmare interruptions I had to live with. When it came to naps, at least, I was home free. I don't think I had enough time to drop into Stage Three, given the whole class schedule thing and the fact that the lunch was only an hour long.

Suffice to say that my first month at the Academy was _boring as hell_.

Of course, someone had to stroll along and break the monotony that was my school life, and he did it by tripping over me as I snoozed on the playground. Eventually, I would get used to sleeping in trees solely so people didn't trip over me ever again, but that wasn't the day.

Anyway, the first indication I got that trouble was coming was when I felt a sandal scrape across my foot and totally twist it the wrong way. As a side note, I'm kind of a crappy sensor when I'm sleep-deprived. Which is _all the time_. This isn't really saying much about my sensing abilities, now that I think of it.

Both of us ended up yelling "Ow!" at the same time. I pulled my foot back, because a tweaked ankle is no fun when taijutsu training is later in the day, and pulled my sandal off so I could get a better look at the damage. About a second later, I realized I probably should also take a look at whoever had just face-planted into a tree root or a swing, and was greeted by the sight of a boy's butt sticking up in the air as he tried to get his face off the ground and do his own assessment of his injuries.

"You okay?" I asked. My hands were glowing a faint green as I preempted any swelling from my ankle—I was good enough with medical ninjutsu to manage that much, at least. I'd probably be able to make sure Mr. Awkward Landing was all right, too, assuming he hadn't knocked a tooth out.

Then again, we were eight, so maybe that wasn't even much of a big deal.

At the sound of my voice, he rolled over so he was sitting on the ground, clutching his face. He even had dirt in his spiky black hair. It was like instead of going for a faceplant, he'd tried to be an ostrich. "Ow... Man, if I didn't have my goggles that would've been bad!"

My experience with fashion is and probably always will be limited. I nonetheless maintain that snowboarding goggles are not actually a reasonable accessory in Konoha, which hasn't seen a snowfall in the course of known shinobi history. Land of Fire and all that.

The boy continued muttering, "Though I didn't need goggle lines on my face like _that_…" All of a sudden, he glared at me and said loudly, "Hey! What were you doing sleeping here anyway?"

"I'm tired, the tree provides shade, and people usually don't run around it too much, because of all the roots." I suggested, looking over at him with half-lidded eyes. I was tired all the time, true, but that didn't mean that I wasn't aware of things when I had to be. "Anyway, are you okay?"

Sure, people tripped over me, but as far as I was concerned that was more their problem than mine. I wasn't exactly napping in the middle of a hallway, after all.

"I'm fine!" he insisted, waving his arms for emphasis. "It takes more than a pratfall to defeat the great Obito Uchiha!"

Oh what the _fuck_.

On one hand, the kid in front of me was a genuinely well-intentioned if clumsy person. He was probably, at the moment, the only explicitly identified Uchiha alive (since I couldn't remember if Itachi had been born yet) who _wasn't_ some kind of arrogant douche. He was kind, thoughtless in a kind of endearing way, and trustworthy unless it came to paying attention to a clock.

On the other hand, Obito _could_ grow up to be Tobi.

For about five seconds, I just stared at him like he was from another planet.

I was also solidifying my reputation as a total space-case. Oh well. I don't think Obito even noticed, and I think it was because his goggles _had_ dug uncomfortably into the bridge of his nose, and he got distracted by the pain again.

"Seriously, though, that hurt!" Obito said.

I frowned. "Take those goggles off so I can see what's wrong." I said, getting up onto my knees.

"What? No, there's nothing wrong!" Obito insisted. He might have tried crab-walking away from me if it wasn't for the fact that the root he'd hit was in the way.

"If you want me to heal that, you have to stay still." I said. He froze. I continued, "I know it's probably not serious, but there's taijutsu later. It's no fun to fight when you're getting a black eye."

"What, seriously? Oh man, I didn't know it was that bad!" Obito fretted, pushing his goggles up so he could touch his nose. Bad idea. "Ow!"

"Stop that." I ordered. It must have looked odd to outsiders, if there'd been anyone looking at us. The playground was always busy with tag games, though. I wondered what Obito had been doing before tripping over me, but I never asked. "I'm gonna make it look less like you got in a fight, okay?"

It seemed, even then, like Obito had to be held by the hand to avoid hurting himself. I'm still not sure if it's a boy thing or just an Obito thing—most of the boys I knew later had different takes on the whole self-destruction thing.

"Okay, fine." Obito said sullenly, pushing his goggles up on his forehead.

It wasn't really that bad—like with other bruises, it was just a matter of closing up burst blood vessels and urging the body to clean up the now-useless extra blood. It was only a bit worse than my foot, even if Obito's issue was way more colorful. I was just speeding up what his body would do naturally over the course of a week, and it didn't really take that much chakra to accomplish that on something so minor. At least he wouldn't look like a panda and have to explain that to his parents later on.

"That feels funny." Obito said, closing his eyes against the green glow of my chakra.

"It's supposed to feel better." I said, taking my hands away. I felt drained—it took chakra to heal, and as an eight-year-old I didn't have much in the way of reserves just yet. I would, though. Even if I had to train to exhaustion.

"Well, yeah, it feels better too." Obito said. He opened one eye, seeming to check if I was done poking him, and then poked at his nose experimentally. "Oh! It doesn't hurt at all!"

"And the bruise is mostly gone." It would have been a pretty interesting bruise, too. Oh well. "You can check in the bathroom mirror later or something."

"Nah, I trust you!" Obito might have been a bit too trusting, really. I hadn't even told him my name. "So what's your name? We can't be friends until I know what I can call you!"

Obito wasn't one for patience, I guess.

"Keisuke Gekkō." I said, a little stunned by how fast he'd turned around from being a sullen klutz. After a moment, I added, "Though you can call me Kei, if you want."

"Keisuke?" Obito paused, wrinkling his nose. "I don't remember you being in any of my classes."

"I've been sitting in the back of the room a lot." I admitted. It's easier to sleep there, without fear of someone shooting spitballs into the back of my head.

"Oh, you're the guy who's always asleep! Man, I know class is boring, but I thought it was _just_ in class!" Obito said. He pouted. "But you're higher in the class rankings than I am!"

Wait. _What_.

"Hey, do you want to play? I mean, it's not much of a game of tag if we only have two people, but I'm sure I can find something else that we could both do." Obito continued, oblivious to my growing dismay. He grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet. "I think there's still wooden kunai in the play shed and no one's using the targets, and even if there are we can run them off."

I held up a hand to pause that train of thought. Checkpoint! "Obito, I'm a girl."

That, and I still needed to put my sandal back on before I went running off into the wild. The rest of the world had splinters in it.

Obito has one of the most luminescent blushes I've ever seen. "Oh, uh… But you have a boy's name…"

"My dad wanted a boy first. Though I don't mind playing with you anyway; it was an honest mistake." I added, feeling my lips turn up into a slight smile. Even though I was tired, he was pretty funny. "Where'd you say the kunai were again?"

At my easy dismissal of his major faux pas, Obito grinned brightly and tightened his grip on my hand. Blarg. Sandal. _Wood chips_! "This way! Come on, I'm sure we can get Rin-chan to join, Kei!"

Huh. The other aspiring medic-nin in the class. I hoped Rin wouldn't mind us crashing her jump-rope session.

Rin Nohara—Obito's only love, the lynchpin to the Plot, and all-around nice girl in a bad spot. I didn't expect to like her at all, given how little I knew about her other than the fact that she was probably going to be in the same graduating class and how her death made everything go straight to hell.

"Rin-chan, wanna practice kunai throwing with us?" Obito called out, bouncing over to her with me hopping on one foot in his wake. _Sandal!_

Rin, bless her heart, agreed despite how utterly _weird_ we both were. And I eventually did manage to get my sandal back on, finally.

So, that's the story of how I made my first friends at the Academy.

That night, I had a nightmare about Rin's death and Obito's psychotic break. My subconscious was officially becoming unmanageable. So instead of just carrying on as usual, I went to Dad.

Dad didn't really have a study or a lab or anything, even to practice his sealing work. Dad used fūinjutsu only to make explosive tags, mainly by copying the mass-produced ones down to each separate stroke. He used his blood, or sometimes Mom's, in order to get better results than the market standard, but he never did anything else with it. He didn't have a summoning contract with any animals that I'd ever seen, and I think Minato and Jiraiya were some of the few people to really _innovate_ when it came to seals. Nonetheless, Dad was up late all the time, just polishing up his equipment for a mission or reading things in a mission file, or other stuff I wasn't really supposed to see.

I guess if I hadn't been a chronic insomniac, I never would have known.

"Dad, what do I do when I can't stop dreaming about things that haven't happened?" I asked, rubbing my eyes in the lamplight. Another sleepless night and I'd probably collapse in the middle of class. Not that me being less-than-conscious in the Academy was new, but I didn't like the idea of not being able to choose when to drop off.

Petty, I know, but after five years of weekly or bi-weekly nightmares that never seemed to lose their edge, I think that I probably earned whatever sleep I did get. About the only thing I can say is that the really bad ones only happened occasionally, though as long as Hayate didn't have a crisis of some kind I could usually get at least six hours. Nine was a blessing, when it happened.

I was _so _going to be a stunted adult.

"What do you mean, Keisuke-chan?" Dad asked.

I'd never really told Mom and Dad the real content of my nightmares. It was easier for them to believe that I was afraid of things like the first day of school, of shots, or of visiting the dentist.

"I've been having nightmares since…I don't know. Forever?" I was hiccupping. "Daddy, I want them to _stop_."

"What are they about?" Dad asked, picking me up and settling me in his lap. "Are you having a tough time at school?"

Forever, to a kid, could mean anything from a day to the rest of their lives. Children are prone to exaggerating so much as an hour-long car ride, because not being able to move around and affect the world is incredibly boring.

"No! School's fine, b-but I can't stop…I can't stop _seeing_ things," I started crying. Dad, thankfully, didn't panic like he used to. Much. "Haa-chan…"

"Does something happen to Hayate?" Dad asked, rubbing my back. I looped my arms around his neck and buried my face against his stubble, even though it tickled my face.

"They killed him!" I sobbed, "I keep dreaming he's a grown-up and dead and I can't _stop_! H-he _was there_, and they _sensed _him, and they fought and there were _traitors_ and he _died_!"

It was like five years' worth of fear and rage and grief were trying to tear out of me all at the same time.

Dad ended up taking me to see the Yamanaka clan the next day.


	9. Old Souls

One of the questions to ask yourself, when you're awake at night and unable to get to sleep, is "what am I _really_, when no one's around?"

It'll keep a person awake if they're anything like me.

This isn't due to anything like guilt—I was eight, and it's hard for an eight-year-old to be responsible for much when there aren't even any pet fish in the house. If I felt guilty, it would be because I hadn't told my parents what was worrying me to death and thus worrying them by proxy. It might have saved us all some sleepless nights, especially me.

It stuck in my head because everything I used to define my "self" in this world—Keisuke—was tied to other people, to this world. The rest—the laziness, the knowledge, the maturity? That was the stuff from before. And I'm not sure Keisuke Gekkō as everyone else knew her would have been the same without the rest of me.

Anyway, Yamanaka mind jutsu tend to leave the victim—or patient, in my case—unconscious. When they don't want you to know what they're doing, they don't bother to knock and say hello or use mental manners in any way before tearing your brain open. Granted, most people the Yamanaka use their jutsu on are enemies, or maybe each other for the sake of practice, so politeness was never the first course of action. Killing stuff was.

I guess the first sensation I felt after I "went under" was the feeling that someone was knocking on my mind. It's weird to be pulled out of the day-to-day workings of the body, like breathing and stuff. I knew the Yamanaka clan jutsu weren't actually supposed to be lethal on their own—it was what the jutsu did to you that was the real killer—and so I tried not to worry about the basic functions of my body while my mind was off being analyzed.

Speaking of which, my mind is actually pretty boring. I mean, how many people really have a mindscape that looks like a completely white room, with random images floating through the air and a Freudian couch, coffee table, and high-backed chair in it?

"My brain is weird." I said aloud, listening to my voice echo. It was actually a pretty cool effect, if I ignored how empty it made everything seem.

"I've seen worse," said Inoshi Yamanaka. I think he might be Ino's grandpa or something, though he actually has visible pupils and his hair is dark blond instead of Ino and Inoichi's spun gold. It's very pretty all the same, though. "Though I have to ask—why are there two of you?"

I blinked (insomuch as I could without real eyes) and looked over at the couch, where Inoshi was staring. And there, lying on the velvet, was a smaller version of me. She was about four or so, looking exactly like I had at that age, and seemed fast asleep. A mirror floated by at just that moment, spinning lazily, and I got a look at my reflection.

I was an adult, with a fairly average, nondescript build. My face was somewhere between what I would look like as an adult in my real body (based on what I could understand about artificial aging and what I knew about my parents' bone structure heritability) and a bit of what I'd looked like before, with the mole under my left eye that I'd had before I'd been reborn. I wasn't especially sickly-looking, though I did have noticeable bags under my eyes, and my face seemed to have naturally downturned lips. I looked a little like a college librarian, if librarians wore Konoha flak jackets, had swords strapped to their backs, or wore bandanas with the metal hitai-ate plate on them.

Also, when the hell did I get glasses again? I must be the intellectual half, though fuck if I know how exactly there ended up _being_ an intellectual half.

"I didn't know I even _had_ a split personality." I said, frowning. "Or am _I_ supposed to be the fake?"

"Neither half of a dissociation event is 'fake'." Inoshi corrected me. He looked very patient about the whole thing, considering that he'd gone into an eight-year-old child's mind and found two different beings in it. I still think he was mostly trying to keep me from freaking out and splitting again, which struck me as a terrible idea given my apparent estrangement from reality. "Now, how long have you been having these dreams?"

As if on cue, a dream fragment floated by. I caught it with one hand and brought it in front of me, flipping the planes of its surface so I could see it properly and not through a distortion that seemed like a TV viewed the wrong way.

Hayate, eavesdropping on Kabuto and Baki after Gaara obliterated Dosu for being a pest. Normally, that scene was the start of one of my most common nightmare episodes. Hayate would be discovered, Kabuto would disappear, and the fight would start. It only ever ended one way, and I never wanted to see it. But it was like watching a movie while my eyelids were taped open or cut off—nothing I could do could change it. It just went on and on, forever, and every time I saw this future I woke up crying.

Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to have normal nightmares, about dinosaurs and tornados and things.

But when I was like this, feeling and looking like an adult, the memory didn't reach out and try to consume my consciousness. Instead, the younger version of me started to whine in her sleep.

"Since Hayate was born." I said. I let the dream slip out of my hands, watching as it floated away to join the others in a great cloud of images and sounds floating high above our heads. On the couch, my younger self fell silent. I leaned against the raised back of the couch, tapping my lower lip in thought. "I never even looked to see how much other shit was here. I kept worrying about Hayate instead."

"You're eight, Kei-chan." Inoshi said, "Despite what you appear as right now—though somewhere between a grown kunoichi and a child may be accurate in terms of 'what you are' in a literal sense. As a child, you can't be expected to see too far beyond the present and the immediate past. It's how most children are."

"Except for the fact that I obviously had a psychotic break when I wasn't paying attention." I replied, looking up. One of the dream fragments was falling. "_Can_ you even have a personality older than you are? I never read anything about this before."

"Normally, shinobi with dissociative identity disorder don't develop their first split until after a mission gone bad. The alternate selves tend to be younger or older, depending on the trauma and which age group might be better able to handle it. People vary." Inoshi replied. The guy was completely unfazed. I guess that as a Yamanaka, that was the whole point when it came to mental stuff like this. "Otherwise, the cases we see have to do with children exposed to extreme violence at a young age—the kind that a, say, four-year-old is entirely unable to handle. The split happens to protect the child's mind from the trauma."

"…I guess constant nightmares about my brother's violent death could do that." I said, and I caught the other dream fragment as it landed.

This one featured Rin's death. ANBU, Chidori, Wood-Release-wielding Obito and everything.

"This one's about a pair of kids I just met, when I was awake." I said, sending it spinning off toward the other side of the blank white space with a flick of my wrist. "But the other one was all about Hayate. The rest…I mean, how the fuck is it that I have _that many triggers? _I don't even know a kid with white hair!"

It wasn't really a question. I knew exactly why the visions were there. But even if I couldn't lie in my mindscape, misdirection isn't impossible. There was a reason the mind could be represented as a maze. And technically, I'd never met Kakashi. But I did know _of _him—it was hard not to know about the Hatake genius, who entered the Academy and graduated within a few months, and who made mockeries of all the clan kids in his year.

Little-me started to stir. I decided to call her Id. Most of the Id is sleeping under the influence of the Ego and Superego, after all.

"The subconscious doesn't deal entirely in facts." Inoshi said mildly. "How do you know who the subjects of your dreams are?"

"I just…know?" I paused. That didn't feel quite right. It wasn't a lie, exactly, but it wasn't accurate either. "…Even in my dreams, I'd know Hayate anywhere." True. But not Truth. "Wait, no… I think I recognize him by his chakra. The feel of it…it's part of what makes him _Hayate_ and not some asshole under a genjutsu or a transformation. I _know_ who he is."

Inoshi nodded. "And do you know yourself?"

Shit. This was how I imagined meeting Socrates would be.

"No." I said. "I'm eight. Or at least I think I am." I waved my arms, gesturing mostly at myself but also at a passing memory, of my eighth birthday party. "_This_ version of me is twenty-something and _she's_ four. And our body is eight." I paused. "This is so confusing."

"The mind is always a puzzle." Inoshi said. "Do you have any idea why?"

_Because I'm the subject of a botched reincarnation?_ I didn't say. I'm not sure he would have believed me. Then again…wasn't this my mind? And wasn't my current appearance that of an older kunoichi version of me?

"I keep getting these dreams," I said distractedly, as an image—grainy and warped—passed by our faces. I think it might have something to do with the Fourth Hokage, but I didn't get anything more out of it than that. "They don't feel like dreams—they feel like memories, because I can still picture it all even when I'm awake. Dreams fade. Memories—_visions_—don't work the same way."

Nightmares didn't fade the same way, though. Fear stays in the mind longer than anything other than pain, because the brain tries to remember so the cause of the pain and fear can be avoided in the future. It's useful for survival in terms of inducing a kind of threat-oriented mindset, but PTSD still has a major toll on mental health and the quality of life that follows after it develops isn't really all that great. And it degenerates into paranoia all the fucking time, even though ninja are only _paranoid_ when all of their enemies are dead. It's not paranoia if they really _are_ out to get you.

I closed my eyes. "I wonder, am I supposed to be…acting on them, somehow? I might be protecting myself from the pain…maybe I'm just a defense mechanism, and this is a warning for someone other than me. If I knew what was causing them, I'd be able to tell who the hell this is supposed to go to. Maybe they're visions of a future. Maybe they're nothing but utter paranoia."

"And if they're just anxious dreams?" Inoshi asked.

"Then I wish I didn't have them." I said, rubbing my eyes. Next to me, Id stirred.

"But you don't believe that."

"No, I don't. There has to be a _reason_."

I guess it was more accurate to say that I _hoped_ there was a reason I had to remember all of this. Why couldn't I have been reincarnated normally, and been born an average girl in an average world? Why here? Why now of all times?

"I wonder, am I supposed to see the future? Or is it just a possible future?" I mused aloud, with a sigh. "Is it just a fucked-up dream? Is any of this shit supposed to be real?" I waved a hand, gesturing to all of the cloud of memories and possible visions at once.

I was getting distracted. Id brought me back to earth, reaching up to grab my wrist without me noticing her move. I looked down.

For being a four-year-old version of me, she looked so tired I almost wanted to tell her to go back to sleep, but this was her mind too. Instead, I picked her up and held her, balancing most of her weight on the shelf of my hip. She clung to my neck.

"I don't have any idea what I'm doing." I said. I ran my fingers through Id's hair as she sniffled. "But I don't want Hayate to die. Or Rin, or Obito, or anyone else I might dream about. Maybe the stance I'm going to take is a selfish one—I'm really only protecting myself from pain, at the end of it all—but I don't want to just sit on my hands and do nothing."

Inoshi made a noncommittal noise.

He was the best sounding board ever, even if he was probably going to put everything into some kind of file and bury it in bureaucracy until the Hokage wanted to know why I was such a weird kid. Or maybe he'd take it directly to the Hokage and I'd get ANBU babysitters-slash-interrogators. Who knew?

The sad part is that, as the only soul of this body, I'm the one who created Id to protect _me_. She's the child, the innocence, the carefree part of me who clings to her parents without ever thinking of the life I used to have. She's the one who loves Hayate with a child's understanding and easy affection. I love him with the fierce, defensive love of an adult with responsibility for his life. The same translates outward into the rest of our relationships with other people, because splitting our reactions means there's no middle.

Both of these things are a part of me. I just partitioned them off like they were different countries because I'm an idiot and because I'm under stress.

I think.

"I wish I could take all of these and just…I don't know, put them in an album or something." I said, looking up at the seething mass. The cloud of visions and dreams seemed to titter, as though the murmur of a crowd had suddenly increased to a proper speaking volume. "That way I'd be able to take them out, in order, if I wanted to see something. I mean, some of them could be like alarms, when they're coming up, but some of them are just trying to turn me into a sobbing wreck."

Not that they really needed to work at it.

God, I wished there was some kind of manual for being a half-assed retroactively precognitive crazy person. Though the fact is, if anyone else did manage to write it, I'd be too busy feeling sorry for them to read it. I'm terrible like that.

Then the cloud above our heads began to roar, as though a thunderstorm was building. There was the clashing of cymbals, along with the sound of a trumpet blast, and a line of the floating menagerie of images extended outward from its main mass. As I watched, the line morphed into a swarm as the rest of the visions followed along, almost as though something was sucking them away from the flock.

The lead vision was heading right for us, leading the horde.

I raised my free hand to meet it.

Inoshi and Id's hands joined mine.

_Pain's Almighty Push turns Konoha into a crater…_

_The Ten-Tailed Beast's attack strikes the Alliance headquarters in Kumogakure, killing hundreds…_

_"Sakura. Thank you."_

_Kurenai's eyes widen as Shikamaru tells her of Asuma's death…_

_"…or your son dies at the ripe old age of one minute…"_

_"I'll take care of the mess…"_

I blinked. The white room's customary haze of memory and prophecy was fading, leaving me sitting in the high-backed shrink's chair without Id, feeling inexplicably shorter and glasses-less. The younger version of me was nowhere in sight. Inoshi was, though, and he sat on the couch with his legs crossed in front of him.

"Well, that was something." Inoshi said.

I made a mild sort of noise and kept looking around for both the missing cloud and Id. There was this stupid fog everywhere. "Yeah, and now the other me is missing. Hey, Id!"

"**Hello.**"

Oh holy shit.

The result of the…storm, I suppose, wasn't what I expected. I'd expected that Id would be there, and she was. It was just that there was _also_ a new girl there, hovering in the center of her personal light show—almost as though she'd picked up the Fourth Raikage's Lightning Armor, if the armor could be made up of light, colors, and _sounds_ that hit me like slaps to the face. She was older than Id, looking around eight or nine, and she actually looked how our real body was supposed to, if I could mentally subtract the light show, the way her eyes glowed blue, and the way her feet didn't quite touch the "ground" of this mental world.

"**I'm the Dreamer. It's nice to finally meet you.**"

"…I'm just gonna take a guess and say that you're basically everything I haven't really been managing that well." I said in a strangled voice. Against my chest, Id made a funny noise and went back to sleep.

"**Yes and no. Neither of us are the 'true' Keisuke Gekkō, but she'll make herself known in time,**" the Dreamer replied. She didn't move her mouth. It was a little disconcerting. "**I am hope for the future. And your dread.**"

I looked at Inoshi, who shrugged. I had no idea if this kind of thing was supposed to be normal.

"Okay, between the visions and the memories and the sleepless nights, I guess I should have figured that something else was going on." I admitted. "So, which one of us is going to be the one to wake up?"

"**You, of course.**" I blinked at her. "**You've done well. I'll hold your visions back until they can be useful, and in return you'll help me analyze them for clues.**" The Dreamer smiled sheepishly. I couldn't help but think that the expression didn't belong on her face. "**Two heads are better than one, right? I can't claim to know ****_everything_**** that goes on when you're the one doing the thinking.**"

"Yeah, but usually the two heads in question aren't in the _same _head." I sighed, scratching at the base of my ponytail. Apparently Id didn't count. "Why are you offering me anything?"

"**You gave me love.**" The Dreamer's smile became sad. "**All of your love is mine, too. And I'll help you protect our precious people.**"

"…oh." I said in a small voice.

"**After all, I'm a part of you, too.**"

I nodded. Everything in the mind was representative of _something_, whether how someone viewed him or herself to deeply hidden and reviled issues. It was all symbolic, mostly, but I had a feeling that the Dreamer was more or less what I ought to have had a handle on to start with. She _felt_ friendly, but she was young and despite holding my memories back, I knew that there had to be a reason for it.

I think she was supposed to represent my attachment to this world. All of it, good and bad alike.

Id was probably the larval form of whatever Real Keisuke happened to be.

"Inoshi-san? I think we have it together now." I said, turning to the Yamanaka in our midst.

"Yes, that's probably enough for now." He held out both hands, offering. "Ready to come back to us?"

The Dreamer and I grasped one hand each at the same time.

I woke up in Dad's lap just as Inoshi was pulling his hand back from my forehead. I smiled tiredly. "Hi, Dad."

"Doing better, Keisuke-chan?" Dad asked, pushing my bangs from my forehead so he could take my temperature, even if I didn't have a fever. I guess that between my instability and Hayate's chance of a relapse, Dad was always worried about at least one of us.

Was I really? Well, between the spiritual trip and meeting my other self, I think I managed pretty well! Sure, I wasn't ever going to be a normal kid, and I'd probably worry my head off all the damn time because of both being a ninja and what generation of ninja I was going to be, but I was…okay. Yeah. It sounded right. No one else here fit my old definition of normal anyway, so I guess I was in good company.

"I'll be okay, Dad." I said.

(Or rather, I was pretty sure I would be. As soon as I knew for sure that what Inoshi had seen hadn't been entered in any secret shinobi archives for later perusal by the Hokage. Except that I never would get that reassurance. Even confirmation was a long time in coming. Almost too long. **But that can wait for another time.**)

That night, I didn't dream. Not a normal dream, anyway.

"**Ready to give it a shot?**"

"You bet."

* * *

A/N: Welcome to chapter nine! The primary character Kei interacts with here is one of Ino's great-uncles (since Inoichi is still in his twenties and still a part of a primarily-combat team), and this is where it becomes obvious that Kei doesn't know everything that's going on.

Also, the Dreamer is rather important to Kei's existence, which will be elaborated upon later. :P


	10. Links in a Chain

I didn't have a plan.

I mean, I knew broadly that there was a point A (wherever I was in terms of the timeline) and a plethora of point B possibilities (the various visions). I even knew the details of some of them. But it had been so long since I actually _saw_ some of the non-nightmarified quasi-future that I could only read them as though out of a book. Sometimes the specifics were missing. Sometimes very _big _details were entirely gone.

I still didn't know when the Third Shinobi World War started.

The Dreamer's job was partially just to hold back the stream of unnecessary images that had been driving me completely crazy over the past five years. The other part, which we worked on together, was in hammering out some kind of plan of action in order to make sure that we and everyone we knew made it out alive.

I mean, sure, the thing about life is that no one _does_, but I'd at least like to make it to twenty again. It'd be a shame to fail so hard at this ninja business that I couldn't even beat my old record of "time spent alive."

Sharing the burden over two people helped. I wasn't drowning anymore. Someone had thrown me a lifeline.

**We'll be okay.**

I sure hoped so.

I went back to school the following Monday, since Dad and Mom declared the next few days and the weekend after a family extended weekend. It was really just an excuse for them to watch me for any changes, but I had fun drawing puppies and kunai with Hayate anyway. He was getting a lot bigger, and soon he'd be quicker on the draw than I was when it came to kenjutsu. About the only thing he couldn't seem to figure out how to do for himself was cook, but since he was about three feet tall and I didn't like to move the footstool, I didn't mind taking over for him.

Besides, the day I let my five-year-old brother near a stove uneducated is the day I trip down a well and drown.

"Kei!" Obito shouted, bounding into the classroom well over ten minutes late. I wondered what he'd been doing beforehand that was so distracting, but it didn't really matter. Obito was reliable in that he could always be counted on to be doing _someone_ a favor. "Oh man, we haven't seen you in forever! Were you sick?"

I guess the teacher was a bit too busy to note Obito's entrance, even when Rin drifted over to us as though pulled by some strange gravity. After all, the Inuzuka in class was being overexcited again. Koga was excitable in a totally different way than anyone else, though.

"Sort of." I replied, resting my chin in one palm, elbow on the desktop. "I'm better now, though, and I don't feel quite so tired anymore."

"That's good." Rin said. "I was really starting to worry—I mean, we only met a week ago, but you seem like a nice person and it would be terrible if you were sick or hurt and we didn't have any idea."

I have a hard time believing that I'd be so openly compassionate about someone else a week into knowing them. But then, that's why Rin's Rin and I'm me. Rin's too nice to really dislike, even if I wanted to.

"Thanks, Rin-san, but it wasn't really anything big." I said mildly. At their disbelieving looks, I added, "Dad just wanted me to take the rest of the week easy. And I haven't fallen asleep randomly since!"

"So does that mean you're actually going to listen in applied chakra theory period now?" Rin asked.

"No." I replied. I'd done more chakra control exercises than the Academy could cover, period. It helped that I was aware of it, and the Dreamer tended to help just by pushing back at me so I'd have a better understanding of what and what not to do. It was like wearing training weights, but in my head.

Rin sighed, but Obito grinned. "Oh come on, it's not like we'll _need _to know how to stick leaves to our foreheads in the real world."

I made a neutral noise and unloaded my school bag as Rin frowned. I was starting to think that having a conciliatory personality, when it came to being friends with someone like Obito, might not be the best tack to take. I wasn't especially confrontational either, but that was more because of laziness than a desire to please everyone, most of the time. It just wasn't worth jumping down Obito's throat about things.

Then again, we were eight, and none of us were especially set in our ways (with an exception made for me and my habitual laziness).

"But Obito, it's the first step toward learning some of the more useful exercises." Rin said, looking a little disappointed that someone else wasn't taking their studies seriously. It must have been trying to have two apparent slackers as friends.

My grades said otherwise, giving that I was sitting at the top of the charts. Obito's…not so much. He'd just never been especially intellectual, from what the Dreamer and I had surmised. I theorized that he learned better through movement than books or lectures, like a few other people I'd known.

Of course, he _could_ be genuinely slow like Naruto would be, but I doubted it.

"I started there." I offered, flipping my book open to the page on chakra pathways. I planted my elbow in the middle of it. "But Dad had me move on once I managed to do three at once and got bored."

"Wow! You learn fast!" Rin said, surprised but pleased. I'd given her an easy explanation for my boredom in class. "How far are you now?"

"I was starting to work on tree climbing, but I don't have enough chakra to do it much." I admitted. My reserves weren't ever going to be all that great. While I did have shinobi parents and very good chakra control, someone like Obito—who was descended from _generations_ of ninjas—or Kakashi—who'd been training since he could walk and had the goddamn White Fang for a dad—would easily outdo me. Rin probably wouldn't need huge reserves, though as an orphan it was hard to determine if she'd ever get them anyway.

Anyway, it wouldn't be until we were about nine or ten when our cores started to really stabilize, according to the book.

"So, how long have you two known each other?" I asked, since I knew I hadn't seen either of them when I joined the Academy initially. There'd been a ceremony, but I'd zoned out since it was mostly for five-year-olds. And then I was dragged off to take a battery of tests and apparently skip grades, so it was obvious that I hadn't met much of anyone during that time.

"About three years now!" Obito said brightly. "Me and Rin joined the Academy when we were five!"

And yet I'm in the same class as both of them. Apparently my teachers paid attention only too well during the entrance examinations. I know _I_ sure hadn't been paying attention to the year ranking.

**Don't look at me.**

"Huh. And I only joined a month ago…" I murmured, staring at my book without really seeing it.

"Really?" Obito sounded genuinely surprised. "That's weird—I thought everyone joined up at five!"

"I think my parents held me back." I said, though I'd been aware of it and had agreed at the time. I could see why they would want to—the older I was when I went into the field, the better chance I'd probably have of making it to being a sane and stable adult. I guess when it came to children from ninja clans, especially in wartime, the bars got set differently. Everything was about prestige and showing up everyone else.

That's a lot of pressure on a five-year-old. No wonder people snapped.

"Huh," said Obito. "Well, you caught up really fast! I wouldn't want to have to teach you stuff just so you could catch up to our age group."

"Obito!" Rin said, lightly scolding, and Obito wilted.

"It's okay, Rin-san." I said. "Neither of you knew. And I didn't know it was a big deal."

Actually, I was mostly interested in graduating by eleven. I probably should have taken it easier, though I don't know how I could have. I _was_ the class sleepyhead, after all.

"Well, we're in our final year." Rin said. "So you'll be graduating with us, right?"

"I think so." I said.

"It'd be so cool if we could be on a team!" Obito said enthusiastically.

I didn't want to burst his bubble, but… "I don't think I've ever heard of a team with two kunoichi on it. Not to start with."

"That's just because fewer girls pass than boys." Obito said dismissively. "You'll do great!"

I doubted that. Rin and I either had or would have some of the same specialties—mostly in medical ninjutsu and genjutsu—and putting us both on a team with Obito would probably lead to a disaster of some sort. And Obito and Rin, at least in my head, were destined to end up on a team with Kakashi and be subject to all of the shit that would follow. With Rin, Obito, and Kakashi on Team Minato, they made a pretty good generalist/fast response team, which was pretty rare. Most teams specialized, like the Ino-Shika-Chou trio and Team Kurenai's scouting setup, or even Team Gai's close combat assault team. But rapid response teams weren't common.

I wondered what type of team I could end up on.

"I hope so." I said. "It'd be a shame to skip three years and then fail the graduation test."

"Hey, if you _can_ skip three years, some lousy test is nothing!" Obito said.

"We'll all do great." Rin said, and we all shared a smile.

"NOHARA, GET BACK IN YOUR SEAT!" Takahashi-sensei yelled.

And then the magic was gone, but it didn't die. Rin, Obito, and I were fast friends, and when it came time to fight over seating placements again the next morning, we all sat together.

* * *

A/N: A quick interlude chapter!


	11. Head Case

On nights when, normally, I'd be due for another nightmare according to my once-a-week bout with precognition, I was dragged into my mental world. I honestly thought that I'd probably had way more conversations with the Dreamer than that, but like normal dreams, only certain things stuck with me. I think we put our heads together at night solely so I wouldn't crack horribly in the morning, and the Dreamer paid me back for contributing to the collective and sharpening our abilities for the days ahead by erasing my explicit memories of the sessions after the fact.

If I'd remembered everything _clearly_, it would have been no better than the visions themselves. Less terrible, but no less taxing overall.

This is one of the ones I remembered:

The mental world I'd made had gotten a few new features since the last time I consciously recalled visiting. Where the floor had been a badly-defined white void that happened to let everyone feel like there _was_ a floor to stand evenly on, with physics and everything, something had apparently sprung a leak. Where once there had been a white void, there was the usual setup of chairs and coffee table, but they were surrounded by soft blue-white light and the lowest six inches of everything happened to be underwater. There was the sound of dripping or sloshing water, everywhere.

Since I hadn't learned the art of floating on air inside my head, or water-walking, I would have been wet up to the middle of my calves if this was real.

"**How much do you know about the way that the world works?**" the Dreamer asked, perching on the top of the high-backed Therapist Chair. Gravity, momentum, and the conversation of matter and energy sort of went out the window when it came to my dreamscape. Then again, dreams are weird in general. That's the point. Neurons fire randomly when humans are asleep just to keep in practice, and then dreams follow.

After creating the Dreamer, I was starting to get more of those. Not visions.

I sat on the couch, legs crossed in front of me and Id's head on my thigh, and said, "For a while there, I thought I knew at least a bit. Only being reincarnated and stuff threw that right out the window."

"**I didn't mean cosmology, precisely. I meant this one. You know, the world you've been having visions about? That you live in?**"

"Are we talking events or just the way this place is put together?"

"**The latter.**"

I lowered my chin into my hands, thinking. "The only reason this place is so weird is because of chakra, and that all came from the Ten-Tailed Beast. So, if it wasn't for a giant unknowable monster whose death-slash-sealing became the source of all things natural energy, physical, or spiritual chakra, this would be like my old world.

"And yet, the Sage of Six Paths had to have figured out something beyond special to do anything at all to it, unless chakra's somehow the local equivalent of radioactive fallout from the Giant's existence, pressing down on the world and warping its structure. He had to have been the first—the Bruce Banner of the shinobi world." I paused, thinking that over. "He made the beast's energy his own. Only, from what I've seen, Tailed Beast chakra isn't human enough to be used by humans unless there's some kind of filter. Otherwise…"

The image of Naruto's skin cooking off and regenerating and then burning again floated by, unnecessarily. And that was only from four out of the Nine Tailed Fox's signature nine tails, and _he'd_ been its jailor since he was born.

I didn't want to imagine how much damage the Ten Tailed Beast could do just by existing.

As though on some kind of cue, a vision of the Tailed Beast Ball vaporizing Allied Shinobi HQ collided with the first image. The problems with thinking out loud in one's mindscape were becoming obvious.

"**True, the existence of the Ten-Tailed Beast did change this world from what we'd refer to as 'vanilla mode,' but its real value was in how it changed the creatures that live here,**" the Dreamer said. "**All humans are born with chakra. All beasts, birds, and fish are born with chakra. The air has chakra. The plants can grow exclusively off of it. This world is dependent on it, much like how life originally adapted to the expansion of oxygen supplies. If there is a resource, it will be exploited. Life finds a way.**"

"Please don't quote _Jurassic Park_ at me." I mumbled, massaging my temples. It would be some kind of world-ending paradox if I managed to get a headache _inside my own head_. "So, the world runs on chakra. We can't say for sure, but if this world runs on chakra, there's gonna be bad things if it suddenly doesn't have it anymore."

"**Yes. You already know one form of it as chakra exhaustion. Or 'death by chakra exhaustion,' anyway. We won't be allowing that to happen to us.**"

"I don't exactly have a large chakra supply." I pointed out.

"**That's why I'll be acting as your reserve.**"

I blinked at the Dreamer, not quite comprehending. "Chakra is a mix of physical and spiritual energy. Like gas and oxygen, not enough of either or the wrong balance of both and there's no ignition. And you don't exactly have a body and it's not as though either of us knows how the Yin Seal works."

"**You're thinking of it a bit too narrowly,**" the Dreamer said. "**What are the elemental forms that chakra can take? Keep in mind that my being the storage center for your more detailed visions doesn't mean I'm explicitly preventing you from using them if you want.**"

Having the Dreamer in my head had reduced most of the visions to a _feeling_ instead of a collection of possible triggers attached to a million flashbacks that kept going off every time my brain found a neuron to flip to On. If I focused, I could remember things like the first time I ever rode a bike. If I didn't, I could still remember _how_ to ride a bike, though there weren't really any bikes in the new reality I found myself in. It's the difference between an explicit and an implicit memory.

"Water. Fire. Wind. Lightning. Earth. Then there are the advanced kekkei genkai fusion setups, like Ice and Wood. Or Dust Release, for a three-way connection and stupid levels of destruction." Some of the kekkei genkai weren't advanced nature manipulation. There was Kimimaro's Dead Bone Pulse, along with Sakon and Ukon's freaky not-actually-conjoined twin act. I'd never figured out the name for that one.

"**You're missing the two big ones**."

I frowned. "Well, there's Sage Mode and natural energy and sage chakra, which can turn you into a frog if you do things wrong." Yeah, not testing that. "It's also used by the curse seals because of Jūgo."

"**Off by a mile.**"

"What, then?"

"**Try looking a little further back. What did the Sage of Six Paths use in order to distribute his human-filtered chakra? What was he so famous for, barring the creation of ninja techniques?**"

A picture of the Sage, wreathed in darkness, with his hands glowing red and blue with chakra that didn't look like any of the normal elements. A Hyūga clan member, likely a jōnin Neji, setting up for Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms on a background of the Taoist Taijitu.

"Yin-Yang Release."

"**And I am almost entirely composed of Yin chakra, formed from your overflowing spiritual energy and mixed with physical energy as you grew. Yours, yes, but I've been saving it up.**"

"I thought you were a mental construct." I said, dumbfounded.

"**That too. This is your mind. It doesn't have to make sense except in the most roundabout, half-assed, illogical way possible.**" She shrugged. "**I am the multipurpose, artificial personality-slash-mental-construct whose whole purpose is to make up for the fact that your soul wasn't scrubbed out right. You run the body.**"

I'm pretty sure she was insulting my Wikipedia-esque thought patterns. I go on mental tangents and get lost a lot. Along with my existence.

"What would we be if I'd been incarnated normally?" I asked.

"**I wouldn't exist and you'd probably dead by twenty.**" The Dreamer said it so matter-of-factly that I almost felt chills. "**This isn't an insult to your intelligence, but we're not particularly driven people when apart. Or ambitious. With no outside pressure, there wouldn't be any visible or tangible need to improve. We'd be behind the curve eventually, and then probably die.**"

"Oh." I said. At least she was being nice about it. "So. Yin chakra."

"**The birthplace of all genjutsu and medical ninjutsu. It's about getting something from effectively nothing. Or making it ****_look_**** like there's something. Honestly, if we had a proper chakra storage seal, I wouldn't even need to multitask like this.**"

"What's that actually mean for us? I was already going to be a medical ninja, even if I stab people on the side." I pointed out, ignoring her complaints.

"**With a month's worth of Yin chakra saved up, I could create a very complex genjutsu,**" the Dreamer suggested. "**Or maybe heal broken bones. You really ****_don't_**** have a lot of chakra to spare, so I've been trying to only take what isn't used and won't be missed.**" And letting go only when she felt like it, probably.

"I'm eight."

"**And growing up will help. But we don't really have that much time.**"

I knew that much. If Tsunade could get away with keeping her Yin Seal intact for decades or however long she had, and could release it complete with hilariously overpowered regeneration capacity and _even more_ super strength, I wondered what we could be with four years' worth.

Except that I was never going to be one for punching. Stabbing, maybe.

"**Of the pair of you and Rin, I'd say she's the combat-capable medic with emphasis on the medical half. Or she will be—it's hard to be certain of something when we never saw anything about her other than the Kannabi mission and her death.**" The Dreamer sighed,"**You, on the other hand, will be a combat medic with the emphasis placed on ****_combat_****.**"

Well, I'd already known that. I hadn't been a doctor in my past life, or a biology major, or even a particularly interested chemistry student. I'd been a psychology major with an interest in ecology, history, teaching, and half a dozen other major fields. I wasn't one for technical details in anything other than my field, and learning cellular energy processes in high school had nearly bored me to tears. I didn't have enough of an inclination, even with my external motivators of a) death and b) possible death were strong enough to change the basic fact of the matter. I didn't have a brain geared toward medical ninjutsu the way Rin did. Mine was all analysis, for some reason. Cross-discipline.

And Yamaguchi-sensei noticed that. He knew I was motivated by my brother, not myself, and I wasn't ambitious as a rule. It wasn't quite what he was looking for in a full-time apprentice, and therefore I wasn't one. I learned on weekends only, even if I had been learning since I was about six. It wasn't like kenjutsu, where Mom drilled me into the ground every day and I was happy to let her.

"**Counterintuitive, but it can work.**"

It's just somewhat depressing when your _optimism_ shuts you down.

"So, I guess that means no Hippocratic Oath."

"**For the enemy, no.**"

I paused. "Also, did you ever say _why_ you were gathering all my excess spiritual energy and converting it to Yin chakra, or why it was even remotely necessary?"

"**It's because of your situation.**"

Bwuh?

"**I'm not sure if you noticed, but your brain and the age of your soul have never matched up.**" The Dreamer sighed again. I think I was the kind of person who drew frustration out of people. "**If the reincarnation cycle had scrubbed your memories clear properly, it wouldn't even be necessary. But how, exactly, did you think that you kept your adult mind when your baby brain wasn't remotely capable of handling either the thought processes or memories?**"

…I'd kind of just chalked it up to soul-body dissociation in the vein of _Yu-Gi-Oh! _and let it drop. I hadn't had a lot of time to think on it, since I'd been a bit busy just trying not to freak out.

"So, chakra—one way or another, has been supporting my existence."

"**Chakra does the impossible. You're an impossibility. The connection is a little obvious.**"

The problem with arguing with yourself is that even if you win, you still lose. The other problem is that, because of the immense mental resources that had been entrusted to her, she was also coming to conclusions faster than I could. We were different, but the same pool of general information was there. I'd apparently handed analysis over to her for the course of this conversation.

"I give up." I muttered, hugging my knees to my chest. I sighed. "So, we keep storing Yin chakra. We keep looking forward. We keep practicing. We keep hoping for the best."

"**At this point? Yes. It's all we can do****_._**"

With no actual evidence of _anything, _it'd be hard to convince anyone with actual power to act on my visions. Even Inoshi, who'd seen some of them almost a year ago, hadn't seemed to really think anything of them. I didn't even know if they'd stay accurate—you could be off by as little as half a degree, or less, but in the long run that was still a possibility for major changes. Ripples make waves, eventually. My visions wouldn't change over time to reflect my existence. They weren't, on their own, entirely reliable.

I could build on what I knew wouldn't change. That was all. Everything else I'd have to play by ear.


	12. Unity

"Obito, what happened to your face?"

Not the most tactful thing to say, I guess, but I'd never seen Obito come to school with a bruise before. Especially not one in the shape of a hand. I mean, even in class spars we weren't really going for knockout blows yet, since everyone involved was a kid and we were all future comrades. The bruise was bigger than my hand, which was on the upper range of fist sizes for our class, so it couldn't have been a kid.

Not a kid our age, anyway.

"Holy—uh, Kei, did you want something?" Obito asked nervously, carefully angling his cheek away from me. I probably wouldn't have even noticed the problem if he'd made a habit of sitting on my other side, but he was in Rin's seat.

"I want you to show me what happened to your face, Obito. It looks like it hurts." I said firmly. Rin wasn't in yet, which I think was the only reason I got the obstinate expression out of him instead of a nod. He'd set his jaw and after that, only Rin would be able to get him to do anything.

Actually, the fact that Obito _wasn't_ late ought to have clued me in before I saw his cheek.

"No way! I'm fine, Kei." Obito insisted.

"Then let me see your face." I said.

"I'm fine!"

"No, you're not!"

"What's going on?" Rin's voice came from practically nowhere and both of us jumped, though Obito immediately covered his cheekbone with his hand. "Obito?"

"It's all good, Rin-chan!" Obito said.

**Liar.**

"Then put your hand down." I said.

Obito scowled, leveling a glare at me that looked more like a pout. "No!"

Every once in a while, I would forget that we were still eight, given that we were learning how to become killers while in school. Rin could be mature and modest, and Obito could take stuff seriously when he wanted to. And I was _me_, in spite of any craziness. Then stuff like this would happen.

"Obito, please don't hide from us." Rin said in a deeply disappointed voice. Obito wilted. "I'll take care of you."

Well, that could sure be taken a couple of different ways. I was suddenly glad that Rin _was _eight.

"Hey, I fixed you up the first day we met, too. Do you think we're going to make fun of you or something?" I wanted to know.

"I _know_." Obito groaned. At least he lowered his hand so Rin could get a look at it. "But it's embarrassing."

"I offered to beat up anyone who said anything about cooties." I said. And I would, even if I had to smuggle my shinai into the classroom. Obito would just have to cough up the names.

Obito flushed, which looked pretty bad with the bruise. "That's not the point!"

"This looks like you tried to block." Rin said. When Obito tried to jerk away from her, she grabbed his chin. "What happened?"

"Uhm…Rin-chan…"

**Owned**.

Obito ducked his head. "It's really nothing."

I poked him in the side and he flinched. Bruised ribs, too? Had to have been a pretty bad beating. "That isn't _nothing_, Obito."

Obito tried to glare at me, but he gave up. He grumbled, without looking at either of us aspiring kunoichi, "It's my asshole cousins, okay?"

At the word 'cousins,' I got the impression that the boys—probably boys, anyway—were older than Obito. They probably were embarrassed by Obito's status as the class loser, ranked dead last in the academic standings, and of course decided that beating the crap out of him sometime before class was the best option to change that.

Sometimes I was really glad I wasn't a part of one of the big clans.

Rin's look made me think that she didn't really know what was going on. As an orphan, she wasn't exactly going to be missed if she died in the field—another thing that made me think that the ninja world was irreparably fucked-up even though it shared that with my old one—and she didn't really have any major expectations riding on her shoulders like an albatross or a millstone or something. Heck, I didn't really have any major discrepancy between my parents' expectations and my accomplishments, unless you counted exceeding them in basically every way. Being better than expected was, while not perfect, a hell of a lot better than being worse.

Especially in the Uchiha clan.

Neither Obito nor I really wanted to have to explain it.

"You might have to go to the nurse's office." I said, my hands glowing green. I could fix a mild bruise like the one on his face without the teacher even noticing, but if Obito had any cracked rubs or damaged organs, well, I was out of my league. Granted, he probably wouldn't have gotten to school at all of that'd been the case, but I still didn't want to take any chances.

I also wanted to track those Uchiha punks down and beat the shit out of them, but that would have to wait until I was strong enough for my revenge impulse to be worth the name and not just a get-myself-killed impulse.

"I'm fine. I can skip if things get to be too much." Obito said stubbornly. "Just don't tell Sensei why."

"If you skip, I'm dragging your sorry butt to the hospital." I said flatly. I remembered only too well where it was.

"Like you can." Obito snapped back. He really must have been in pain. Obito usually didn't snap at anyone—he just yelled.

"Between the two of us we might be able to take care of it." Rin said after a moment.

Honestly, I thought she'd be the type to call on Sensei right away. Even if Sensei was an overworked chūnin who had so much trouble controlling thirty kids that he didn't even notice the three of us conspiring in the back. He wasn't even the first sensei we'd had, since the first three had been called to the front and killed or something.

"I don't want this getting back to my parents." Obito muttered sullenly. He didn't look at either of us.

"…In that case, let's ditch after lunch." I suggested. At my friends' looks, I explained, "Yamaguchi-sensei's known my family since I was little, and he's been the one teaching me how to heal. He might be a medic-nin, but he's all ninja first and confidentiality agreements will help us."

Obito asked, "Do you think he'd help us? Really?"

"I think so." I said. I couldn't really offer anything better. I tried anyway. "At least he's better at healing than the school nurse or I am?"

"If we're caught, we could say we were doing some extra work to polish up our scores." Rin suggested. "Having a medic-nin cover for us would work, if we could convince him."

Obito groaned. "I don't have any choice in this, am I?"

"Nope." I said, deadpan. "Just surrender to the loving care of your girlfriends and maybe we won't break out the ribbons and glitter."

"Kei-chan!" Rin said, half scolding and half laughing and all blushing.

Obito pouted, cheeks almost glowing red. "Kei, that's mean!"

"I'm cruel to be kind." I said loftily. Still, my expression softened. "We're friends, so we'll all look after each other."

"Well, duh." Obito said, rolling his eyes. "You two win this round."

It turned out that Yamaguchi-sensei was pretty willing to take care of Obito for us, even if he didn't exactly approve of the whole playing hooky thing and he was technically on his lunch break, too. We met him on the hospital roof, where he generally had his smoke breaks, and hiding from other people in the forest of drying sheets made it less embarrassing for everyone.

"I don't even want to know what kids like you are getting up to nowadays." Yamaguchi-sensei said, with Obito sitting on the concrete next to the chain-link fence that bordered the roof and kicking his feet idly. Rin and I hovered like overprotective parents, though we really weren't being all that useful.

All the energy we had made us feel like sitting still was even worse, though.

"All right, so the obvious injury is the one on your cheekbone—I assume it was a sucker-punch." Yamaguchi-sensei said.

Obito mumbled something indistinct under his breath.

"If there really had been four of them, I hope you would have chosen to run instead." Yamaguchi-sensei said, frowning. His cupped hand glowed green and Obito's bruise disappeared under his fingers as we watched. "Unless you couldn't."

Obito shook his head minutely, scowling.

I wanted to shake him until his baby teeth rattled out of his head so I'd know who'd punched him and then would be able to plan my _revenge_. A few years down the line, anyway.

"Um, Yamaguchi-sensei, what technique are you using?" Rin asked.

"Mystical Palm Jutsu," he replied, though absently. He wagged his finger under Obito's nose and said, "Okay, _you_ take off your shirt so I can see the rest of the damage. I don't have enough chakra to heal broken bones at the moment, but I'm sure I can find someone who does and make them do it."

As Obito grumbled but still shed his jacket and T-shirt, Yamaguchi-sensei continued, "I've been teaching Kei-kun here as much as she can handle for the last few years, but it's always slow going with civilian children."

It was my turn to scowl at him.

"You aren't a ninja yet, so don't you dare give me that look." Yamaguchi-sensei said. He turned back to Rin and went on, "I take it you're interested?"

Rin's eyes lit up. "Oh, yes! If I could be as good as any medical ninja we have, that would be _amazing_."

"Well, if you're interested, I could spare some time. Kei-kun meets up with me on Sundays, mostly, but I could free up Saturday afternoons if you want. Unless you want to join her?"

I wondered how long it had been since _anyone_ had given Rin a chance to learn one-on-one, and immediately tried not to think about it. Dammit, as an orphan Rin wouldn't be missed by anyone other than us if she died, and that was so much less than the love she deserved. She deserved to reach for the stars like any kid, and Yamaguchi-sensei had offered her his regard inside of five minutes of meeting her.

I told myself not to be jealous. This _wasn't_ my show. I was not the center of the universe.

I felt envy anyway, since I always got a little possessive of people, which was stupid and irrational but still _true_. I'm still childish in some ways.

Obito gave a hiss of pain and I immediately stopped the pity-party to see what was wrong. And I winced.

Obito looked pretty bad. He had bruises on the outsides of his arms, on his back, and even one a little below his ribcage. He looked like someone who'd been knocked down and kept getting up despite or because of the curb-stomping session he'd been in.

I immediately started making the hand signs for the Mystical Palm Jutsu, even though I wasn't exactly much in terms of chakra capacity, but Yamaguchi-sensei grabbed my hands and shook his head.

"This looks like it must have been one hell of a fight," the medic said casually, already numbing the pain with medical chakra.

"Yeah, you should've seen the other guy." Obito said, though most of his signature bravado was forced.

Uchiha clan kids are such shitheads.

"And I see you mostly managed to protect your face and ribs. It's better than it could be." Yamaguchi-sensei frowned suddenly. Given the harsh angles of his face and his gray eyes, it looked a little like a death glare without a target. "Let me see your hands."

"Uh…" Obito hesitated, which meant that Yamaguchi-sensei grabbed his wrist and turned his hand palm-down. His knuckles were scraped up, but not as much as I'd expect from someone who punched training posts only every once in a while. There was blood under his nails, though.

I mentally smacked myself for not noticing earlier. _Check for defensive wounds, idiot!_

Obito wasn't trained enough to punch people silly, though he'd be able to stand up to totally untrained idiots, and it confirmed my suspicions that the entire affair had been more of a desperate attempt not to get stomped to death. Obito would have been able to handle himself against pretty much everyone _except ninjas_. I was starting to see why the Uchiha clan had gotten such a shitty reputation in my visions, if this bullying was something they didn't even bother to discourage.

"Officially," Yamaguchi-sensei said in the driest tone I'd ever heard, "I'd have to tell you to go easy on training. Unofficially, I'd like to see what happens when Yoshi and Matsumaru Uchiha end up in the hospital in the future and spend their time strapped to their beds due to being a pair of flight risks."

Obito flinched. "Ah, Yamaguchi-sensei, it wasn't…"

"The two of them are thirteen years old and genin." Yamaguchi-sensei said flatly. Okay, his glare was almost worse without a target to aim it at. _Brrrrr_. "They should be disciplined enough not to pound on someone four years younger than they are who hasn't even received his hitai-ate yet."

"How'd you get their names?" I asked, crossing my arms.

"Some people come to the hospital with interesting injuries; nail marks, bites, that sort of thing." Yamaguchi-sensei looked at me and said, "And you, Kei-kun, shouldn't be spoiling for a fight you can't win yet."

_Busted._ I subsided, grumbling.

"Yamaguchi-sensei, um, what were the seals for the Mystical Palm Jutsu, again?" Rin asked.

Yamaguchi-sensei shrugged. "It depends on who's using it. Personally, I use a modified Ox seal and then move to Tiger, but everyone I know bases it on what feels correct. Seals are just a shortcut in some jutsu, and when you have enough control over your chakra you can more or less do what you want. I've seen techniques with forty hand seals reduced to four."

I was suddenly reminded of the Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet technique that Kakashi and Zabuza used against each other, and that the Second Hokage had been able to use without even really trying. I wasn't sure if that meant that Zabuza, Demon of the Hidden Mist and master of the Silent Killing Technique, wasn't inclined toward water-natured chakra, or if that something funny had happened when Kakashi had hypnotized him. I supposed I would never know.

"Wow." Rin said.

"And if you're asking, you probably have pretty decent control already." Yamaguchi-sensei went on. He nodded at me. "Kei-kun has similar levels of control to a chūnin or low jōnin, and she's smart. While you have a less forceful personality, I think you've got the same potential."

One of these days, I'm going to stop talking about school friends to anyone who'll listen. I didn't expect Yamaguchi-sensei to _remember_ the stuff I said about Rin and her possible awesomeness. Heck, Dad didn't generally even remember that kind of thing, and I lived with him! Not to mention bringing Rin over a lot, both to collaborative studying and just to eat dinner with us.

"R-really, Sensei?" Rin's lip was wobbling.

"You can do anything, Rin-chan!" Obito said, and I noticed that all of his bruises had faded to almost nothing. Yamaguchi-sensei was good.

"If nothing else, I can teach you enough to stand out." Yamaguchi-sensei said. "That should _also _be enough to make sure you make it to genin alive. And even if either you or Kei-kun washes out of the Academy, I'd be happy to take either of you as apprentices as long as you keep striving toward fulfilling your potential."

Well, given that I had no goddamn idea what I was doing, that sounded like a neat backup plan for me. It was also a perfect out for Rin, if something happened. She'd never be without a path toward the future. Maybe Rin would do better at it, ultimately—at thirteen, she'd been able to transplant Obito's Sharingan into Kakashi's eye socket without any tools and in a combat scenario. She'd be a genius if she had a chance to be.

"T-Thank you, Yamaguchi-sensei!"

"By the way, what's your first name anyway?" Obito asked.

"Akihito. The name's Akihito Yamaguchi." The medic shrugged. "Who knows? I may even apply for sensei this year. I am a jōnin, after all. Anyway, back to the Mystical Palm Technique…"

So, he and Rin hit it off right away and he gave both of us pointers toward what would, eventually, become mastery of the Mystical Palm Jutsu. Rin wasn't allowed to use Obito to experiment—Yamaguchi-sensei recommended fish and small animals, between each application of healing chakra— and I was still _supposed_ to be volunteering in the hospital before he'd let me heal people on my own, but I think we learned a lot.

And Obito learned that we'd go the extra mile to look after him.

* * *

**A/N:** The name for the ability in _Mass Effect 2_ that allows you to heal your squadmates? Unity.


	13. Opening Shots

I missed about a week later that year, maybe three and a half months before the exams. It wasn't because I was sick (since I had been known, even in my old life, to show up at school come hell or high water or family crisis), or because Hayate had a crisis again, or even Mom's apparent anemia. I wasn't pulling out of school due to financial problems, there hadn't been any injuries, and my mind hadn't decided to fracture again.

But a little after I turned nine, Dad died.

Later, I found out that his rotation at the border station had been overrun by shinobi from the Land of Earth. Not all of them were Rock ninja—some were from Kumogakure, apparently—but the reinforcement team dispatched from Konoha didn't get there until the fight was long over. It was part of the reprisal attacks for things that happened a couple of years back, apparently, and ultimately marked the beginning of the Third Great Shinobi World War. Dad and his team were all killed, even if we got the bastards who did it and tore them to bits after. All of the bodies were recovered, though that didn't mean much for the families.

There was barely enough left to cremate, in the end.

Mom held Hayate through the ceremony, and I think he was just old enough that he understood what had happened. All of us dressed all in black, and while the sky didn't open up to cry with us, it was shadowed by dark, heavy clouds and I made up for it in gross sobbing—it was _Dad_ who'd been reduced to just a picture in a frame, with flowers from us and his friends and fellow shinobi. I'd grown up practically on his knee, learning everything I could from his low, scratchy voice and feeling his warmth when I was inconsolable to Mom. Dad wasn't _mine_ like Hayate was, because ultimately I couldn't be responsible for anything about his life, but he was family and now his place in my heart was empty and the hole was bleeding.

It's not possible to go through a life like ours without losing someone, unless dying young was in the cards. The life of a shinobi is full of pain and loss if you live long enough. I just didn't ever want to feel that pain, even if it was inevitable.

It was naïve.

The hardest part was being back in the house after the memorial service.

"Sis?" Hayate said as I drifted from room to room, like a zombie. He followed me on my circuit of the house, quiet as a cat except for his voice, and I stopped at our parents' room. My hand formed a fist on the wood of the door.

"Yeah, Hayate-chan?" I sounded exhausted even to my own ears.

"Daddy's not coming back, is he?" Hayate asked.

"No, Hayate-chan. Dad's not coming back. He's gone." I replied, listening to Mom cry through the door.

I turned away, picking up Hayate on the way back to our room. With Mom like that, it seemed that it fell to me to explain things to my brother. She'd recover, but Hayate needed an explanation now and I was just on the odd little neutral zone between being all out of tears and collapsing into bed to sleep off reality. I could do it.

We both sat on my bed, up against all the pillows I used to throw at him when we were younger, and he curled up against my side.

"Where'd he go?" Hayate asked, and he looked like he was going to cry again. He understood when things changed permanently, but I guess he didn't quite get the permanency that came with death. Not just yet. It was sinking into both of our minds, like water through the ground.

"He's dead, Hayate-chan." I said, squeezing his shoulders. I tucked his head under my chin, so he wouldn't see me start to cry. "I don't know if he went somewhere _better_, but Dad died protecting us and Konoha. And he won't forget us and we won't forget him."

"Why couldn't Daddy protect us _and_ come back?" Hayate asked, sniffling.

I squeezed him harder. "That…I don't know. They tell us in school that there's always someone faster, stronger, or smarter than we are and," I swallowed, "Dad couldn't do everything."

Hayate buried his face in my neck. "I wish he could. Then he'd be _here_."

"So do I, Hayate-chan." I whispered. "So do I."

**We'll survive. The journey of life is not painless—but with luck, we'll be okay. Cracked, but okay.**

I closed my eyes and buried my face against his hair. The Dreamer was right, but I didn't want to hear it then.

"It'll be okay, Hayate-chan."

Privately, I resolved to graduate the Academy that year. Mom was still listed as inactive because Hayate was so little, and no one thought they could let a nine-year-old Academy student take care of a younger kid. I could exceed that admittedly low bar, but not for the months a chūnin could possibly spend on a mission during wartime, and not without some desperate scraping for money. Mom would need to get a desk job despite how her skills were all for combat, and we'd still be in trouble, since Dad's tag-making had been a pretty significant part of our income. We didn't have any extended family to fall back on in tough times, just friends with their own problems.

It'd be easier for us to survive if I was a genin and had my own income. So that's what I resolved to do.

I went back to school on Monday. I must have looked terrible, slumped over on my desk, and not showing half of the exuberance necessary to keep up with the rest of the class. I barely felt like I could breathe—the Dreamer stuck with me, whispering reassurances, but it felt empty. It felt like I was drowning by inches, even though I had so much I still had to do.

"Kei, where have you been?" Obito asked.

"We haven't seen you in a week!" Rin said. "We thought something happened to you."

I lifted my head out of the bowl of my arms.

"Oh no…" Rin said, looking horrorstruck at my expression.

"Kei, what happened?" Obito asked, much quieter this time.

"Dad died." I said with my voice barely above a whisper. "It's…it's been a hard week."

"How?" Obito asked, dropping into the chair next to mine. Rin sat at my other side, hand on my shoulder, and I sank lower into my seat.

"The border station got attacked. No one made it out after the hawk got sent." I don't know how my voice stayed steady. I felt like I was drifting in place, as though the world wasn't quite real. "We got the news on Tuesday."

I was drowning.

"Oh, Kei." Obito didn't quite seem to know what to do. Eventually, he settled for a one-armed hug around my shoulders. "Rin-chan…?"

"We're here to support you, okay?" Rin said firmly. "If you need anything, come to us."

"Thanks, Rin-chan, Obito." I murmured. I put my hands over my face.

"You're going to graduate with us, right?" Obito asked.

"Obito!" Rin began, but Obito scowled.

"I'm serious! If you graduate with us, we'll look out for you, okay? No one will ever, ever say anything bad about you or your dad while we're around!" Obito insisted. "That's a promise!"

Rin nodded. "Right."

There was no way I deserved such amazing friends.

**You'll pay them back by doing what you can to save their future.**The Dreamer seemed to sigh. **We already knew we weren't going to let them go it alone**.

Right.

"You two are the best." I told them gratefully, hugging them both. "No matter who ends up on what team, I'll hold you to that."

The rest of the school day seemed to pass us by, even though it was one of the review days and there were pops and smoke from imperfect Transformation and Clone jutsu going off all the time. And when I went home that day, they followed me.

"Hayate-chan, this is Rin-chan and this is Obito-kun." I said later that night. "They're my friends from school."

Hayate held up both of his hands. "I'll show you where you can wait! Dinner's almost ready!"

Bless them, neither almost-genin minded being led around by a kid who wasn't yet six. And Mom, while not happy, exactly, seemed more animated when there were people to take care of.

For the first time since Dad died, I was smiling again. It was a little cracked and a little broken, but it was a smile nonetheless.


	14. School's Out Forever

After all the drama of the year, the final exam was practically a cakewalk. Unless I horribly failed the practical—and I wouldn't, given that I'd practiced with Rin and Obito and…and Dad, back when he was alive—my scores would carry me through. I was easily within the top ten percent of the class in books and ninjutsu. My taijutsu wasn't as strong, but I hadn't been allowed to bring my shinai for the class sparring sessions. The teachers said it wasn't fair, even if the two Inuzuka clan kids were allowed to bring their dogs. The only thing I had trouble with, other than taijutsu, had to do with the special kunoichi classes, mostly due to lack of interest. In the last month, though, I had Mom and Rin help me polish up my feminine skills.

Hayate might be a bit traumatized in the future, given that I used him as practice for putting hairclips on someone else. Mom's hair was too full of ribbons.

Rin was less skilled in the physical realm, but she was better at the Clone Jutsu than I was. I think her brain was just generally more oriented toward genjutsu than mine was, while I had my former artist's brain backing me up for the Transformation Jutsu. Replacement was less than perfectly stable for either of us, but Obito had that more or less down.

Actually, the only one we were really worried about was Obito, since his test scores _sucked._

**He ****_did _****have a very low intelligence rating before. **The Dreamer wasn't being especially productive in her opinions, since we were rapidly approaching a pretty dangerous gap in our information. We needed to meet up properly and reassess our understanding of everything that happened or would happen over the course of the next year. I couldn't think of much.

Rin and I waited anxiously outside of our classroom for him, since his last name meant going way after either of us. Both of us had passed, so he was just keeping us in suspense.

On the other hand, Rin and I were sporting fashionable new headgear—we'd both passed easily, and while Rin had chosen a traditional hitai-ate, I preferred the bandanna style. It made me feel a bit more grown-up and fit better with my distinctly boyish hairstyle.

Hey, if I was gonna be named Keisuke for the rest of my life, I might as well get _some_ amusement out of the endless misunderstandings.

"I'm sure Obito-kun passed." Rin said, sounding unsure despite her words.

"He'd better hope so!" I said crossly, to cover my anxiety. After my test, all of the worry I'd had was apparently stored up for Obito's sake. "After everything you two have done for me, we're supposed to graduate _together_!"

And at just that moment, Obito exploded out of the classroom in the midst of a victory dance. "I _PASSED_! I told you I could do it, Rin-chan, Kei! Isn't this great? We might even get on the same team tomorrow!"

I punched the air, graceless in victory. Rin laughed with relief.

"So, ready to find an awesome sensei and join Team Awesomeness?" Obito asked, bumping shoulders with both of us.

"Is there even any room on Team Awesomeness for us?" I asked.

"You bet!" Obito laughed, throwing his arms into the air. "Come on, I'll buy us all lunch!"

"Buy me strawberries and we'll be even." Rin said, "It's too early for lunch."

"Dango for me." I said. "I'll even pay for enough for all of us."

"You haven't paid for _any_ lunches yet." Rin teased.

"Strawberries and dango? Sure. I like those too. Sounds like a picnic! Anyone got a spare blanket?"

**Remember, these are the moments we're fighting for.**

Obito kicked the Academy doors open and we stepped out into the bright sunshine together.

In the Academy yard, there was a huge crowd of proud parents, siblings, and various other relatives. Since Rin was an orphan, we'd agreed ahead of time that we'd all be celebrating together. I just had to find Mom and Hayate in the sea of people, while Obito needed to find his mom so we could all take off. He didn't seem all that enthused about the idea of his dad showing up, or even expect him to make an appearance, so he and Hayate would be the only boys. It was a good thing that Hayate liked him.

Speaking of which, it was pretty easy to find my family because Hayate was sitting on Mom's shoulders, putting him well above the average height of the crowd. Hayate had his child-sized shinai in his hand and a grin on his face, while Mom seemed to glow with pride. I danced my way through the crowd so I could tackle-hug her without her having to set my brother down.

"Mom!" I called, waving my arms. "I passed!"

"I knew you would, Kei-chan." Mom said, and she looked a bit misty-eyed. "I just wish…"

"I know, Mom." I said. I didn't need to hear the words to know Dad would be proud, too.

Mom blinked a couple of times and finally let Hayate down. He bopped me with the shinai, but not very hard, and Mom said, "Hayate-chan, your sister is a real ninja now. Isn't that something?"

"I'll be a ninja too!" Hayate said. _Bop_.

"Hello again, Hayate-chan." Rin said, having decided not to risk bowling people over when it came to greeting my family. "Will you be joining the Academy soon?"

At age six, I suppose that Hayate _could_ have joined, but I'm not exactly sure I would be content to just leave him alone if he did. On one hand, he'd be learning how to be a ninja. On the other, _he'd be learning how to be a ninja_. And earlier than I had, to boot.

If Mom hadn't taken any chances with me, she probably wouldn't with Hayate.

"Maybe." Mom said, discreetly directing Hayate's shinai away from Rin's face with one hand. "I like to be sure my students have the skills to be successful before I send them running off into the wild."

Unspoken: _Academy teachers don't bother, figuring the rest is up to the jōnin leaders of each team to make sure you all survive. __**Fuck them**__._

"Hayate-chan will probably be ready before I was." I admitted. "Give him a year and he'll probably be better than I am now."

"But he'll still be able to learn things from you." Rin reassured me. She was just a reassuring kind of person, I think. It certainly explained why Obito went after her.

Obito, as though called by the siren song of his name and the idea of things happening without him, appeared in a blur of blue and flailing limbs. He bounced in place as a dark-haired woman made her way through the parted crowd in his wake, wearing the usual high-collared Uchiha standard shirt. Or at least it seemed that way—actually, Obito's mother seemed to be an unusually _quiet_ Uchiha, once she got within speaking distance. For one thing, she didn't yell at or otherwise scold Obito for being loud.

"Hey, Rin-chan, Kei! This is my mom, Kaede Uchiha." Obito said, turning back to his mother. Obito's mother's eyes widened a little upon seeing Mom's hitai-ate around her waist. She wasn't active, but Mom rarely left it at home. "Mom, these are my best friends! Rin-chan and Kei, and Kei's brother Hayate-kun and her mom, Miyako-san!"

"It's very nice to meet you, Uchiha-san." Mom said formally, bowing. Obito paused, because Something Was Wrong Here, and Rin and I exchanged glances over Hayate's head. We'd all felt the ambient temperature drop for some reason.

"Ah, likewise, Gekkō-san. My son talks about Kei-chan often." That was one of the most generic sentences I'd ever heard. "Rin-chan and Kei-chan are his best friends."

Less ambiguity!

"Mom, we're gonna go get a snack. Can I bring Hayate-chan with us?" I asked.

Mom spared me the barest of glances for us before nodding. "Where are you all going in such a hurry?" she asked, as Obito squeezed his mother's hand reassuringly. "I thought that we'd have a proper celebratory dinner at home later tonight…"

"Miyako-san is _nice_, Mom! She let us move the furniture in her sitting room to build forts and everything!" Obito said to his mother, not especially quietly. Everyone pretended to ignore it.

"I'll be home in time and I won't spoil my dinner," I said, "but we're going to celebrate our last day of classes first, okay?"

"Well, I suppose that this _is _the last day before team assignments." Mom said. She sighed, "Dango?"

"Exactly!" I said.

"We'll try not to keep her out too long." Rin said.

"Yeah, Kei will be home before you know it!" Obito said, bouncing back into the conversation. "I promise!"

**Are you marrying them or something? This sounds familiar. It ought to involve porches and shotguns and cars and meeting the parents…**

"You both suck." I said flatly. "And Obito, you never get anywhere on time anyway! Don't talk to me about schedules."

Mom and Obito's mother exchanged glances, even if they hadn't been especially friendly before. Then Mom said, "Try to be home by five, and stay safe." Mom punctuated this by taking Hayate's shinai from him, but handing me a pouch full of kunai. "Run along now."

We did.

Later, sitting a riverbank next to what would, eventually, be the Team Minato training grounds, we had eaten our way through three sticks of dango each, along with a giant carton of strawberries. I'd have probably gone for ice cream, preferably of a green tea flavor, but we were content to watch the world go by otherwise.

"You know, as ninja we're going to be dealing with some pretty heavy stuff." I said after a while, the last dango stick still in my mouth. I liked having something to chew on, if possible. It was an easy distraction, and being able to throw stuff shaped like senbon as actual weapons, like Genma, sounded pretty cool.

"So what?" Obito scoffed. "We're Team Awesomeness and there's no way anyone can stand against the power of our teamwork!"

"I wonder who our sensei will be." Rin said mildly. She sighed. "We don't even know if we'll end up on the same team…"

"They're probably still going to stick with the two boys, one girl format. I think we have enough girls graduating for that, at least." I suggested.

What I didn't say was that, as the top two kunoichi in our year, Rin or I would probably end up with Obito one way or another, just because of tradition. I kind of hoped it would be Rin—she had the personality to deal with Kakashi and Obito without wanting to murder either of them despite the way they grated on one another. I loved Obito like a brother, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of pissing me off with his antics. And Kakashi would probably drive me up the wall just by being himself.

Yeah, it'd be better if Rin dealt with the boys, and I stayed by the sidelines to help when asked.

Except if she _did_ end up on Obito and Kakashi's team, she'd be dead before fifteen.

_Fuck_.

I was glad that Hayate had found the river utterly fascinating, because I didn't need him to see my utter failure to keep from breaking out into a cold sweat. I kept an eye on him and an ear on my friends, because the idea of Hayate drowning on my watch? So many levels of terror were involved there that I didn't have words for them.

"Well, even if we end up on different teams, we'll still be friends." Rin said.

"You're both allowed to come over to my house whenever." I said firmly. "Mom and Hayate-chan have pretty much adopted you two anyway."

"And you?" Obito teased.

"I wouldn't put up with you if you weren't pretty much family." I replied. Wait, no. "Well, actually, if you were enough kinds of crazy or asshole or both, I'd drop you like a hot iron and then beat the crap out of you."

"Aw, you can tell she loves us." Obito laughed. Rin giggled.

"Cruel to be kind, you said?" Rin mused. "It's amazing that we can even find you under all of those spikes."

I stuck my tongue out at them.

"So, if you're a sea urchin," Rin began, making Obito laugh and me smile, "what does that make us?"

"You're a stuffed animal, Rin-chan." I said. "With a set of lock-picks and a brick in it."

"Then what am I?" Obito asked.

Rin and I looked at each other.

"I don't know. He kind of reminds me of a tomato." I said.

"Hey!" Obito didn't seem quite sure if he was supposed to be offended or not.

"Um…maybe a puppy?" Rin suggested.

"You mean incredibly lovable and huggable?" Obito asked.

**He's got it bad. And puberty hasn't even happened yet!**

"Sure, let's go with that." I said.

Obito pouted.

Then it was time to go home. I fished Hayate out of the shallows, where he'd shucked off his sandals and been wading around chasing fish, and let him roll around in the grass until his feet were dry enough to accept shoes again. Obito packed up the picnic blanket and Rin took the basket, while I grabbed my brother's hand and we all walked home. Obito went back to the Uchiha clan grounds, probably to have dinner with his parents, and Rin came home with me.

Like hell I was gonna leave anyone I cared about alone.

* * *

**A/N:** So, review responses for people I can't reach normally!

xXKaminari-TsubasaXx: Actually, Kei's existence has affected remarkably little at this point in the timeline, aside from stuff to do with her immediate friends and family. So, it's still on Sakumo at the moment. Kei's dad was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and probably caught a kunai in the face.

Also, sorry about not responding to your previous reviews.


	15. Change of Plans

The next day, the only real reason to head to school was the prospect of team assignments.

I didn't sleep well that night. Despite the Dreamer's help, I couldn't help having nightmares of Team Minato's last mission as an unbroken team (_no Obito please don't die_). And its last mission, period (_Rin Kakashi oh god I'm so sorry_). And I thought, when I woke up, _That isn't going to happen to me._

I didn't really have any idea how to make that a reality, though.

Since Rin slept over at my house, we both wandered around to make sure Obito wasn't going to be late. Mom had given us huge lunches, because of the chance that we'd end up on separate teams and possibly have to share with our less-prepared teammates, and aside from the usual business of herding Obito around, and we were feeling pretty optimistic.

"At least one of us will be with Obito." Rin said, as we headed into the Academy. Obito hadn't been spotted running errands for anyone, so we assumed he'd be more or less on time.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear he was trying to stay at the bottom of the rankings just for that." Rin said.

I shrugged.

To my surprise, Obito was actually there before either of us. He waved, grinning. He was also almost vibrating in his seat from sheer excitement, which was slightly contagious. Rin and I sat on either side of him.

"So, this is the big moment." Obito said, almost uncharacteristically serious. I guess he was a bit nervous too.

"PIPE DOWN AND GET YOUR BUTTS BACK IN YOUR SEATS!" Sensei shouted, because Sensei was an asshole who lived solely to shout at pre-genin brats and couldn't actually control them worth a damn.

Considering that Rin and I weren't exactly early, and since the rest of the classroom wasn't full, I could only assume that about half the class had failed. Obito might have had reason to be nervous, but he _had_ passed where some of our classmates had not. I couldn't even feel any of their chakra signatures anywhere near the building, which was about the maximum range I had at age nine, so I wasn't expecting any last-minute additions. Actually, if anyone _had_ shown up late, I would have automatically guessed Obito, if it wasn't for the fact that he had decided to be punctual for once in his life.

I folded my arms on the table and rested my head on them. The other shoe was going to drop regardless of whether we freaked out, so I decided not to worry too much.

"We'll be great." Rin said, smiling.

"Of course we will!" Obito said, though there was a twitch in his voice that indicated he wasn't nearly as confident as he acted. It'd been there for most of the time I'd known Obito, but now it was more pronounced. "Right, Kei?"

"Yep." I said, though my voice was muffled by my elbow and somewhat distracted.

There was someone else nearby, and I didn't recognize the chakra signature.

While normally I'd probably run into about thirty to eighty people per day and not actually bother memorizing their chakra, I could recall all of our classmates and our teachers, as well as my neighbors and everyone I considered myself close to. It's like recognizing a face or a voice, though without using conventional senses. Everyone's feels a little bit different, and I had an easier time distinguishing between people I'd mentally marked "unsafe" or "safe."

Given that Konoha was a ninja village, the list of unsafe people was pretty fucking long. I hadn't developed an actual ability to sniff out hostility, but anyone who felt anything like Orochimaru, Danzō, or too powerful to accurately gauge was automatically put on the "avoid at all costs" subsection of the list. I'd never actually met the former, but I figured that I'd know what his chakra felt like eventually and had a whole space in my head allotted for it. The latter I'd seen a grand total of once in passing, and I resolved to avoid coming to his attention more due to what I knew about him than anything I felt.

Yeah, relying entirely on foreknowledge or chakra sensitivity wasn't going to happen. I'd use both and the Dreamer to figure out what I was doing. Even if it meant floundering around like an idiot without a lifejacket in a hurricane. Or even _with_ a lifejacket—I'd need a real lifeline to make my way out of some of the shit I could get into as a ninja.

After about ten seconds of contemplation and suppressing my own chakra down to practically nothing to account for interference, I pinpointed the stranger in the hallway outside of our classroom. Whoever it was had more chakra than most of the students in the room, sans maybe the Akimichi kid, and the kind of _focus_ that none of us did.

I memorized the feel of his chakra, prickling and sparking like a battery, and returned my attention to the teacher.

"Didn't sleep well?" Obito asked me.

"Not really." I said. "Nightmares." I tapped my fingers on my arm; that chakra was making me restless, because I really wanted to go out and interrogate the interloper and maybe make him or her stand around holding water buckets for an hour for trespassing. It was annoying, like a fly buzzing around my head.

Never let it be said that I didn't have it in me to do some pretty stupid stuff once I set my mind on it. Or, more likely, _not_ doing the smart thing due to laziness.

Sensei had started reading out the names while none of us were really paying attention. All I'd been listening for were names, and only with half of my attention. So I was surprised when I heard, "…Satoshi Inabi, Rin Nohara, and Kōji Aida. Your sensei is Akihito Yamaguchi."

_Oh what the fuck._ I thought, sitting up.

**Well, we ****_did_**** realize this could happen.**

"Dammit." Obito said, dropping his head onto the desktop. _Thunk_.

"It's okay, guys. I'll be fine!" Rin said reassuringly.

I nodded. I didn't know either boy that well—Satoshi had been decent at taijutsu and pretty good at all of the weaponry tests, while Kōji was pretty laid-back for a kid sitting barely above Obito in the class rankings. He was gifted with a large chakra supply for a kid, which mostly translated to insane endurance, but I didn't think that either boy was really enough of a standout to be worthy of being on Rin's team.

I might have been horrifically biased—Rin was kind of like a little sister, after all.

Obito slumped at his desk, not quite feigning crushing despair, but I ignored him and reached across his back to give Rin a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder. She smiled hesitantly back.

I wasn't really worried about Rin—she could have made friends anywhere, with anyone. The fact that she chose to hang out with Obito and me was a blessing, and I was sure she'd be successful in the future. Besides, she had Yamaguchi-sensei as a new teacher. She'd be okay.

Eventually, more and more names were called and more teams were assigned.

Obito's name didn't come up, and neither did mine. The teacher even rolled up his list and chucked it into the trash bin, where it was promptly eaten by the remains of the previous day's pranks and lunches and things. I think we were the first people in some time to feel their stomachs drop simultaneously. We could have made a synchronized sport out of our reactions to sheer dread.

And that strange chakra's buzzing sensation didn't abate in the least. I narrowed my eyes in its direction—I did not need a headache _ever_, but especially then.

"Keisuke Gekkō, Obito Uchiha." Sensei began, as the rest of our classmates started to drift out of the room.

My head snapped up. "Yes, Sensei?"

I didn't like the guy, but he'd had his fun. We probably both seemed like ADD-ridden slackers (despite my scores), but we'd _passed_, and therefore we needed some kind of team structure.

"After lunch, you'll meet your third teammate and your new jōnin-sensei," our teacher said. "I'm just not supposed to spoil the surprise."

_So he's testing us this early? Bastard. I bet I know exactly who it is, too._

Not that I didn't want to meet Minato and probably Kakashi, but I also kind of wanted to kill them both right then. There was no _reason_ to test us before we even got to meet them. Especially considering that nearly everyone taught by the Third Hokage or Jiraiya or someone taught by their line tended to go with the goddamn bell test.

And then Sensei left, leaving us to our devices.

"Fuck it." I muttered under my breath, standing even if I was in a pretty annoyed slouch. I was up, conscious, and had managed to quell my brief flare of impatience. "Come on, Obito. The roof's nice this time of year and Mom packed me a gigantic bento."

Obito sighed. "Dammit, I wish we'd gotten Rin and not some mystery kid." He paused, as though reviewing his words and his attitude in his head, and added, "Though you're with me, so that's pretty cool. I think we'll make a pretty good team!"

"So do I," I said, and we headed out of the room. "Thing is, we don't train much together normally."

"Yeah, but only because your mom doesn't want you to break people's arms." Obito said. "As if I'd let you."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "It isn't about _letting_ me do anything, Obito. I'm a girl. I do what I want."

Obito snorted. "Oh, we'll see. I'm too awesome to stay down for long!"

In the hallway, the crackle of strange chakra was stronger. I paused for half a breath, determining distance, angle, and strength, and noted that the stranger had moved to the roof. There was the faintest trace of chakra smoke in the hall, though Obito was too distracted to notice, and I bit the inside of my cheek in thought.

On one hand, we could avoid it and no one would notice unless it was some kind of unspoken test. On the other, biting the bullet appealed to me somewhat.

"What'd your mom give you?" Obito asked, distracting me.

"Dunno. I'll check when we get up there and unwrap it." I replied. "But you don't get to complain because Mom packed it."

"Like I'd ever complain about your mom's cooking! She's really good at it. Almost as good as _my_ mom." Obito replied, almost drooling at the thought.

I didn't ask why he didn't have a lunch.

We headed up to the roof, mostly chatting idly. While I was never going to be as close to Obito's goofy open heart as Rin, I'd also never totally leave it. They'd known each other for years longer than I'd been in the picture, and I couldn't begrudge them that. That said, Obito and I knew each other well enough to know what topics were safe and what was probably not worth talking about. As a result, most of what we talked about came down to current events.

"So, who do you think our third teammate is?" Obito asked once we'd spread the cloth cover of my bento box across the concrete between us. Mom really _had_ packed a giant lunch—I'd never be able to finish all of the rice or fish alone, let alone the pickles. Why anyone would ever need so many pickles was totally lost on me. Luckily, Obito would eat anything.

"Maybe an older genin." I suggested, spearing a slice of salmon because I was too lazy to eat it properly with two chopsticks. "You never know what kind of stuff goes down out there."

"So you mean basically someone who was too stupid or useless to keep his comrades alive." Obito said around a mouthful of onigiri. Mom had made them in the shape of a triad of pandas, apparently because even the family eye-bags were worth memorializing in food.

Mom had a strange sense of humor sometimes.

I felt the sparking chakra flare up as though in annoyance. I turned my head in its direction, briefly ignoring Obito, and said, "You can stop hiding anytime you want, you know."

There was a sensation that read, broadly, as surprise. Obito blinked at me and said, "Kei, who are you talking to?"

I ignored him again. "Sparky, I don't know if you're stalking us, but it's not polite and we have a third onigiri panda if you want it."

Obito narrowed his eyes at me, apparently for lack of any better targets. "Where is he?"

_Behind us_. I thought, and didn't jump when a hand swiped our last panda while we weren't looking. I could tell he'd done it, because Obito's squawk of indignation was loud enough for anyone, and because my chakra sense let me know that he'd been within a foot of me when he'd done it.

"Thieving bastard!" Obito shouted as our third party member finally appeared in full view.

He was…small. Smaller than I remembered or expected—he was shorter than Obito, actually, even counting his spiky silver-white hair. His eyes were like river stones set in a pale face (or what I could see of it, anyway). He wore his signature mask, which had a bit of rice stuck to it, and wore a sleeveless navy blue shirt with what I would hesitantly categorize as arm-warmers. Man, I knew autumn in Konoha wasn't exactly worth breaking out the sweaters for, but he dressed more like a girl than I did. He also had a kunai pouch strapped to each thigh and a pocket for scrolls on his shoulder.

"A ninja should be more aware of his surroundings." Kakashi said. His expression—what I could see of it, anyway—was flat and unimpressed.

I rolled my eyes, chin in hand.

"So you're the one who's supposed to be our third teammate?" I could hear the scorn in Obito's voice. It sounded weird—there generally wasn't anyone for him to look down on in the Academy, and he didn't even dislike most people enough to bother. He was too busy being excitable or ignoring the way other people mocked him.

Apparently Kakashi was exceptional in many different ways.

"More like I'm your babysitter." Kakashi replied.

First impression of Kakashi Hatake: He's a pint-sized jackass.

Then again, he was also a chūnin with hundreds of missions under his belt, who'd probably been killing people for longer than I'd been contemplating ninja-hood. He was, in a way, a stellar example of what happened when the shinobi system worked exactly the way the elders wanted it to—a powerful, competent child prodigy who could be sent to the front lines early and survive long enough to actually gain experience from it all. He'd never be ambitious the way that Danzō was, or even the slightly loopy way _Naruto_ was, and he'd always be loyal to Konoha despite what being a shinobi would cost him over the next twenty years.

It made me feel slightly ill, even though I knew what I'd signed on for. Or at least I thought I knew.

"You're not a genin, are you?" I asked, though I knew the answer. "And by the way, I'm Keisuke Gekkō."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed a bit. The sad part was that I could manage a marginally better glare, almost solely due to the shape of my eyes and the persistent shadows under them. I kind of reminded myself of someone with a hangover when I looked in the mirror. "No. How did you know?"

"I guessed, since I don't remember seeing you around before." I said. "Also, a name would be polite. It'd be sad if Obito and I had to call you 'you' forever."

Kakashi made a noise that made me think he didn't particularly like the answer, but he wasn't allowed to punch me for more information. "Kakashi Hatake. Chūnin."

"Well, I'm Obito Uchiha!" Obito broke in, scowling impressively. "And I don't like your attitude."

_Double fuck_. Did they really have to start this now? I knew that Rin had a crush on Kakashi as a member of Team Minato, possibly starting some years beforehand, but I had thought that with me and the team and not Rin, they'd be less polarized. I didn't want to have to choose between my best guy friend and the new kid _on the first goddamn day_.

"Hey!" I said. They both sent sidelong looks my way. "Seriously, hold off on the fights until after lunch. We'll have loads of time to beat each other black and blue later."

The siren song of food worked its magic.

Obito made a face. "But… Oh, fine. Your mom's cooking's too good to miss over a bastard like him."

That was not what I wanted to hear, but at Kakashi's thoroughly disdainful huff, I supposed it wasn't being taken seriously anyway. I had a feeling I'd be spending a lot of my time and energy keeping the two of them from killing each other. Or rather, I'd be preventing Obito from trying to kill Kakashi. I wasn't sure if the homicide attempts on this team would be mutual.

I pointed my chopsticks at Kakashi. "You ate one of the pandas. You have officially been recruited to the traveling circus in penance. _Join us_."

"Aw, Kei, he doesn't _have_ to, does he?" I couldn't tell if Obito was complaining on his behalf or on Kakashi's from the way he phrased it. He still had a pretty amazing pouty face, though. I wanted to pinch his cheeks and tell him he was just adorable, but that I wasn't going to fall for it and that he _still_ owed me an unloaded dishwasher and a new bike.

I'd had cousins like that, before. They were terrible.

"You're insane." Kakashi said flatly, but he wasn't running away. He ninja-poofed onto the railing between is, perching there like some kind of gigantic misshapen pigeon. It also put him well within food-swiping range, which I didn't mind but Obito _did_, from the way his chakra flared.

"I'm a girl." I replied, snagging the umeboshi before Obito could get it. He was too busy glaring up at Kakashi. "It's the same thing." I'd be on a team with two boys anyway, so it wasn't like they could really dispute my claims without tracking down someone else as a counterexample who wasn't Rin, and Minato would start dating the craziest kunoichi this side of Hidden Mist sooner or later. So sue me.

"…You're a girl?" Oh, the deadest deadpan yet. I _liked_ dressing as a boy.

"Bastard! It's obvious that Kei's a girl! You take that back!"

I decided not to say anything about _Obito's_ nearly identical _faux pas_ a year back. It didn't seem like the right moment, and I didn't mind.

I gathered my thoughts as Obito was only barely dissuaded from attacking Kakashi via the sudden discovery of red bean mochi in my bento. Kakashi, for his part, had stolen a pickle via spearing it on the end of a kunai. It was not remotely hygienic, but I supposed that Kakashi had seen or eaten his way through worse.

I said, "Since you're our new teammate, I guess your sensei is ours now, too. What's he like?"

There was the briefest flare of subtle chakra, almost like a breeze had blown through the area, and a yellow flash of light.

Our new guest was tall enough that even my head (since I was the tallest of the kids in the area) only came to about the middle of his ribcage. He had a crown of blond spikes, along with two longer sections framing the sides of his face. His eyes were a clear, sky blue and he wore a standard jōnin uniform, with additional white bands at his wrists and just below his elbows, to minimize wind resistance. If I had to guess at his age, I'd say he was about seventeen years old to our nine.

"Making new friends already, Kakashi?" asked Minato Namikaze.

"Sensei!" Kakashi almost _chirped_, and it was instantly clear that he respected his teacher far more than Obito or I had ever respected anyone. His tone was some odd combination between eagerness and embarrassment—I mean, I knew that Obito and I weren't exactly _impressive_, but we really weren't so terrible that even being seen with us was a bad thing. Unless a classroom had recently blown up, but that was never my fault.

I mentally equated Kakashi to a puppy, following his sensei around like he was always out for an extra treat or ear-rub, and left it at that. The mental image would make me laugh if I thought on it for too long.

Obito was openly staring, eyes flicking back and forth between on our new sensei's face and Kakashi's attitude, and his mental gears were clearly turning.

And then Kakashi caught himself and the magic died. He cleared his throat. "Keisuke Gekkō and Obito Uchiha, Sensei. Brats, this is my sensei, Minato Namikaze."

Well, it was nice to know that he could figure out to how to be an awkward human being for small stretches of time. The rest of the time was going to involve me trying to separate the boys, I thought.

Also, he was a bit of a hypocrite.

Obito growled, "Who are you calling a brat, you bastard!" He was already on his feet, fists clenched, and I concluded that I really ought to look into making friends with less excitable people.

I was kind of glad that I had my bokken strapped to my back. According to Mom, it was amazing how much being confronted with a solid length of wood and sufficient skill could make even the most annoying people back down long enough to talk.

And if it didn't, you could always hit them with it.

"Can we please go back to eating like normal people?" I wondered aloud.

The answer was probably "no."

"Easy, Kakashi." Minato said, but I thought it was a bit late. "Obito, you too. We're all teammates here, and it isn't worth getting worked up and drawing battle lines on the first day."

Not that I really knew that much about being a boy, but I couldn't help but think that Minato didn't have a lot of experience with people with Obito's personality type. Kakashi seemed to be his only student, ever, and _he_ was a miniature shinobi, not a child. This team was going to be a mélange of opposing forces, with punched and kicks and possibly bokken-strikes everywhere. Maybe an explosion, too.

Obito scowled and sat back down, next to the half-finished bento, and resumed eating. After a minute, I grabbed the last pickled slice of daikon and ate it. And then the rest of the rice just kind of vanished, which made me wonder if both of our new acquaintances-slash-teammates were food thieves. Mom would be happy to know that everyone found something they liked.

"Anyway, now that we've all met, I think we ought to have a chance to get to know one another better." Minato went on, leaning against the railing and folding his arms. "So, what should I know about you before we start on the path to being shinobi together?"

I heard Kakashi scoff, but didn't bother rising to the bait. Obito ignored him mostly because he was deep in thought, obviously wondering what great secrets he had that could be revealed to someone he'd met less than five minutes ago.

"You know what I'm talking about, right?" Minato added, "Likes, dislikes, hobbies…?"

I thought about it.

_I'm Keisuke, though I mostly go by Kei. I have a second personality hidden in my head that's composed of all the memories I have from before I died, any relevant information about this world that I can't seem to remember consciously, and my attachment to things like friends, family, and country. Oh, and did I mention that I died? Because I did, and then I reincarnated, only I kept my memories and thus I have a mental age of about thirty. It's why I have this urge to chase people around and mother them instead of acting like a normal Academy fangirl wannabe-kunoichi. I like dogs, cats, my family, and my best friends. They're Rin and Obito by the way, and the former will be dead before she turns fifteen while the latter is probably going to go supervillain if that happens. I dislike a whole bunch of people you're probably not going to live to meet and/or kill horribly, and I live in terror of the day that my brother gets eviscerated by a Sand-nin who probably hasn't even made chūnin yet. My dreams for the future include locking myself in a room with a couple of therapists and maybe driving them crazy with all of this baggage._

Yeah, that probably wouldn't go over well without some serious censoring.

"Well, I like dango." Obito offered. "I also like my best friends, Rin-chan and Kei. I like making people smile—and as a shinobi, I can do more about that when I'm in the village than I could without training." I had a sudden suspicion that we'd be doing D-ranks for a solid month. "My hobbies include helping people out when they need it, training, and hanging out with my friends. I _don't _like stuck-up bastards like _him_"—here, Kakashi snorted—"or when I have to go to the hospital."

A flash of amusement appeared on Minato's face at that last comment.

"And you, Keisuke?" he asked.

"Um." I thought my answer over again, mentally adding some things and subtracting the unhelpful sarcastic confessions. "I like Obito and Rin-chan, too, since we were all friends in the Academy. I also like my mom's cooking, dogs, naps, and playing with my little brother. I don't like swimming, or the hospital, or getting up early." I clicked my chopsticks together a few times, thinking. "I have a lot of hobbies, but the ones that come to mind now are practicing medical ninjutsu, learning kenjutsu with my mom, and reading."

_Do I even __**have**__ any dreams or goals that don't have to be censored to hell?_

**Yes.**

"Eventually, I hope to get strong enough to become a jōnin." I concluded.

"I want to be able to be Hokage someday." Obito added. He turned to me. "What do you think, Kei?"

As a member of the Uchiha clan, I didn't think it would be possible for Obito to get within ten people of the position in the current atmosphere, but I didn't say anything about it. Politics and political alliances were something I didn't need in my head at that age. Even if the Senju-influenced structure of the village and its leadership wasn't a thing, there wasn't much chance for Obito to be the _next_ Hokage, who was basically sitting in front of us like a parent crossed with a cat-herder. Maybe there'd be time in the future, but not the near future, and not with the current batch of asshole elders running the show.

"I think if we're thinking long-term, then fine." I said. "We both have a long way to go before anything big happens." I hoped.

Kakashi made a noise that said exactly how much he thought of our chances for achieving either of our dreams. And of how likely it was that he'd introduce himself the way we had.

"It's good that you're already thinking of the future." Shinobi didn't often actually get one, though. Minato went on, "As for me, I like inventing new jutsu, training as a team, and most of all, my girlfriend Kushina Uzumaki. You'll meet her eventually." He leaned forward. "Now, personally, _my _dream is also to be Hokage someday. I don't know if we ought to make it any kind of race, but if I get the hat, I'll be sure to have you all around as my lieutenants if you want to be."

"…I think I'd pass on the responsibility, Sensei." I said honestly. I was barely capable of being responsible for Hayate without scaring myself silly. The sphere of "things I feel like I can handle looking after" had just _barely_ expanded to include Rin and Obito, and mostly took the form of harassing them into letting me make sure they were both healthy.

Having to look out for the well-being of the entire village would probably result in chronic ulcers by the time I turned fifteen.

"I wouldn't! That sounds awesome." Obito said.

I bit the inside of my lip and didn't say anything. Responsibility: my greatest weakness.

Aside from possibly shrimp. I still hated them.

"Anyway," Minato continued, "We'll be having your _real_ genin test tomorrow morning. Go to bed early and come prepared for a mission, all right? I think you'll do fine, but it's always worth seeing if our new genin have what it takes to work in the real world."

_Triple fuck_. It just _had_ to be the bell test, didn't it?

"I thought we were already genin?" Obito protested.

"Yes, but if you fail, you won't be working with Kakashi and I." Minato replied. "Genin who prove that they can't pass their jōnin-sensei's test either have to tough it out and find their own mentors, or they'll be a part of the reserves forever. If you can't hack it, we won't be taking you into the field at all. There's no sense in adding to the list of the dead for no reason."

Rather chilling.

I nodded like I understood the whole idea, though it was possible that Sensei's test would be different from the one that Kakashi had created for Team Seven a lifetime ago. Sakumo Hatake had died recently and I didn't know how much his ideals had sunk into the village as a whole or Minato-sensei in particular. It was cold to think of my new teammate and possible friend's dad that way, but I didn't _know_ Sakumo. I knew my dad, and that they'd once been close enough that Sakumo had brought me balloons in congratulations for surviving to one year old.

This was going to involve _tons_ of good memories. I could just tell. I made a mental note to speak with the Dreamer about it when I got a chance to meditate properly, because being kept up all night by visions probably wouldn't be much good for my performance in the morning. I needed to clear the clutter and have enough information to focus on, but not be distracted by.

"We'll do great!" Obito said brightly, and I smiled somewhat hesitantly.

What can I say? I'm not much of an optimist.

* * *

**A/N:** Longest chapter yet!


	16. Fake-Out Paradise

So, it turns out that Minato is a bit of a troll. Or maybe he just enjoys watching his students flail.

More on that in a minute.

On the day of the test, I walked halfway across the village to get to Obito's house before our new team was supposed to meet up. Technically, I could have used the shinobi "skyway," also known as roof-hopping shenanigans, but if the bell test was going to happen later that morning, it would be best to save my chakra. Besides, I'd probably need to remember the way to the Uchiha clan grounds at some point or another from a ground-bound perspective.

Obito's house was actually located on the far side of the Uchiha District from where I first entered. I'd had to stop an MP to get that much information—I'd never actually been to his house before. Not sure why. Just hadn't.

Anyway, once in the Uchiha District, it paid to play it like a civilian. Generally speaking, only the Konoha Military Police or ANBU used the rooftops when in residential areas. It kept roofing tiles in place and road dust from picking up, and littering citations from having to be put on _everything_. I didn't want to be the subject of any unusual attention, so I decided to hoof it. It took way longer, but by casting my chakra sense out as widely as I could and searching for Obito's cheerful warmth, I could at least cut down on the time I spent searching for his chronically tardy ass.

(Sadly, shinobi are still human. That means trash finds its way everywhere.)

As I walked, I looked around a lot.

I knew, intellectually, that the Uchiha clan was one of the four noble clans of Konoha. It was in the history books (no matter how shitty those books were), as were the rough histories of the Hyūga, Akimichi, and Senju clans. Of course, clans with unique kekkei genkai—such as the Sharingan or the Byakugan—generally remained isolated at least in terms of marriage. Most of them lived in the district, as much because their clan liked to keep tabs on everyone as anything else. The further you lived inside, the higher rank you held and the older your family probably was. They weren't especially social when compared to the Akimichi clan, who owned shinobi-approved restaurants all over Konoha, and it was said that the Uchiha clan signature popped collars were symbols of their arrogance. I personally thought they looked a little like the anti-bite cones people back in my old life had put on dogs, but I was never going to say that much to any Uchiha on pain of death. In their own way, they were worse than the Hyūga, despite the fact that the gene for the Sharingan seemed to be recessive to the Byakugan's dominant.

And vanishingly few Senju still used their family name, so they were less a clan and more like everyone's cousins. I think that, if I'd _had_ an extended family, they might have been part Senju or something. Just about everyone from a shinobi family (but not a clan)in Konoha had some old clan blood _somewhere_, though the Byakugan could be seen six generations after the initial ancestor and most everyone else's genetics were a little subtler.

For my part, I theorized that Mom wasn't from Konoha initially. Konoha shinobi usually used kunai and shuriken unless they had special training or weaponry at their disposal. A ninja with a katana could be trusted to know how to use it, but most of our styles were sort of…well, we didn't do _schools._ Ninjas taught their apprentices or maybe their genin teams, if the students had the knack for it. Otherwise, the style generally died with the ninja who wielded it.

Either Mom had learned from a school, given her method for teaching me, or she had learned from someone who had. It was also possible that she had developed her own, but it felt too polished for that. Too _finished_. A ninja, after all, was always learning. And probably compensating for having various extremities removed.

Anyway, this line of thought kept me occupied for most of the walk to Obito's house, in between noting that my house was a hell of a lot smaller than most of the core Uchiha clan ones and wondering if there were any houses for sale. The buildings were older, the people more settled. No one seemed inclined to budge, in any sense of the phrase.

I felt like I was walking through the ninja equivalent of a gated community. It was probably about accurate, anyway.

Still, I could feel Obito's chakra about a street before I actually turned and saw him. Noble clan or not, very few of them could suppress their chakra to the point that I couldn't sense them. Obito was not one of those select few and I doubted he ever would be.

He was standing in front of a somewhat smaller Uchiha clan house, the kind with a four-foot fence and a small Uchiha fan painted on the front gate, and speaking to a pair of older shinobi—they looked like genin, maybe, with unmarked hitai-ate and distinct swagger to their movements. Obito was a part of a newer branch, I suppose, and he didn't have any siblings. It explained some of the loneliness I felt from him, when the school yard grew quiet and Rin wasn't around. He didn't have a lot of peers who would hang out with him.

(I didn't either, but I was a self-admitted freak, so who cares?)

I waved. "Obito!" If the other boys he was talking to were friendly, I'd know. Sure, their chakra supply altogether was actually smaller than Kakashi's had been yesterday, shenanigans included, but killing intent and malice aren't exactly subtle. Obito wasn't broadcasting fear—he seemed uneasy, sure, but that could have had any number of causes.

He _jolted_, chakra spiking in clear dismay. The other two boys turned to face me, too. I thought I recognized some of their facial features, relative to Obito's, but resemblances between cousins are somewhat hard to quantify and may mean nothing. I didn't look like _any_ of my cousins from my old life, for example. Given that there were two of them and Obito didn't seem happy to see them, I took a mental leap and assumed that the unidentified genin in front of me were Yoshi and Matsumaru Uchiha. Also known as Obito's asshole cousins.

Well, fuck.

There were many ways I could play things. I could freak out. I could attack. I could do any number of things that would mean a morning spent in the nearest police department and _not_ with our new teammate and sensei. All of them would suck and get us in trouble with too many different people.

Or I could give Obito an easy out.

I ran up to them, focusing all of my attention on Obito even as my chakra sense picked up the indignation from the other two Uchiha boys. "Obito, we're going to be late!"

"Wait, what time is it?" Obito asked, as though he'd entirely forgotten about the other two. I knew he hadn't, but I was a convenient change of topic in some ways.

"It's eight forty-five." I said flatly. I was pretty sure he'd genuinely forgotten, given that Yoshi and Matsumaru were terribly distracting. "We're supposed to meet Sensei and Kakashi with all of our equipment at nine, remember? The one by the Memorial Stone."

Obito's expression shifted from mild surprise to "oh, shit," in about half a second. He whirled on his two cousins, with a rapid, "Sorrygottagonow_peoplearegonnakillme_."

And then we ran like hell, chakra-enhanced speed and all.

We didn't stop until we were well out of the Uchiha District, when both of us had to stop for air and explanations.

"So, were those the two assholes?" I demanded, once I got my breath back. While I was better than I'd ever been at running in my previous life, I still didn't consider myself blessed with much stamina. At least I had room to improve, I suppose.

"Wha—oh. Yeah. Sorry you had to see that." Obito said, wiping his face on the inside of his sleeve. He shook himself. "Anyway, what time is it, really?"

"Eight forty-six, now," I said, glancing at a clock on the wall of a nearby shop.

Obito's mouth dropped open. "Wait, you were _serious_? Oh man, we're going to be _so_ late."

I wouldn't have been, if I'd been able to trust that Obito would make it to the training grounds on his own _and_ on time. But then his cousins got in the way, so I guess we were just going to have to be late together.

"We could use the roofs." I suggested.

Obito nodded quickly. "Okay, yeah. You lead."

I had a sneaking suspicion that Obito didn't know that there even _was_ a training field next to the Memorial Stone, but I didn't ask. We were both too busy bouncing from rooftop to rooftop like over-caffeinated gerbils to bother wasting breath on it.

We arrived a grand total of fifteen minutes later, meaning that we were about a minute late. I think it was pretty much a record for Obito.

Kakashi, of course, was there to greet us.

"You're late."

**Of course.**

I rolled my eyes and returned to breathing on manual mode, trying not to feel the unaccustomed burn in my thighs and calves. Roof-hopping was a lot harder at age nine than the prodigies made it seem. I could only imagine that it would come with practice, and made do in the meantime by walking around to cool down. Obito, meanwhile, had dropped more or less onto his face and had raised the middle fingers of both hands in Kakashi's general direction without looking.

Minato-sensei appeared in a burst of yellow light about thirty seconds later. I had no idea how someone with teleportation abilities could _ever_ be late.

Sometime afterward, I realized that Minato had marked the inside fold of Kakashi's hitai-ate with a Flying Thunder God targeting seal. At the time, I could only think, _What's the bombshell, Sensei? Because we're fucked anyway!_

While Obito and I weren't going to fall for the bell test's most obvious trap, mainly because Obito valued my friendship too much and because I was cheating outrageously with my precognition (as well as being far too lazy to try and fight my teammates in addition to our sensei over _cat ornaments_), I didn't know what sort of trick Minato would have. Kakashi, as a jōnin, had preferred outright lying, trolling, and being a jackass to his students. Minato-sensei had been straightforward, so I didn't really know what to expect.

"Now that we're all here," Minato-sensei said with his arms hidden behind his back, "we can get started."

I braced myself for the bad news. If I could feel the spike of chakra from the Flying Thunder God Jutsu, I could probably feel and interpret any kind of rising amusement with our inevitable fated beatdowns. I thought so, anyway. Obito, who was sitting next to where I was standing, mumbled something rebellious that I didn't catch.

"Here you go, Keisuke-kun. And you, Obito-kun." I blinked. The next thing I knew, I was holding a manila folder in my too-small hands. "Our test today will be in information analysis and in forming conclusions."

"Keisuke Gekkō" was written across the top in large black characters. The one Obito was holding had "Obito Uchiha" written on it.

**Okay, I give up,** said the Dreamer.

Well, at least I wasn't the only one who thought this was kind of surreal. Kakashi also had one, though I'd totally missed the moment when Sensei had handed it to him. Going by the look on Obito and Kakashi's faces, neither of them had expected the folders in the slightest.

"Sensei," Kakashi began, but Minato clapped his hands.

"Right! So, the first thing we're going to do today is check out the Hokage's assessment of our skills." Speaking of which, Minato _also_ had a folder. "It's like a report card for real life, in some ways."

**I suddenly know why this man was so eager to become Hokage. He is ****_the_**** paperwork ninja.**

This is what I meant when I said Minato was a bit of a troll. I got all worked up over the idea that he'd probably give us a sadistic bell test, and here he was, handing out report cards. It was very, very strange, not to mention off-putting.

I opened my file. The top left corner of the first page was taken up by a picture of me, sans my new headband, that had been taken immediately after I passed the final genin test. It was a fairly lousy picture, since I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and my eye-bags were more prominent than ever, but it was apparently only for a year before the file would be updated. The photographers for our ninja registration paperwork were kind of overzealous, meaning that even Obito had managed to get his paperwork done yesterday before school, since the paperwork ninja in charge had probably been chasing him around to get it.

I sat down to read.

_Name: Gekkō, Keisuke _

_Age: 9_

_Height: 120.3cm_

_Weight: 28.1kg_

_Blood type: O_

_D.O.B.: July 10_

_Gender: Female_

_Ninja Registration: 010871_

_Ninja Rank: Genin_

At this point, I got bored and started to flip through the pages in the folder. I already knew my basic information, aside from my blood type. Since Hayate had AB to my O, I could only assume that our parents were heterozygous for types A and B, though I'd probably never have to know the specifics unless it was time to donate blood to someone. Unless it came to plasma—blood was almost never given whole in transfusions, since if O was the universal donor in terms of blood cells, AB was the universal _plasma_ donor. It had something to do with antibody vs. antigen generation, and I wasn't really interested in the details.

I kept flipping through the pages until I came to an octagon chart. I was strongly reminded of a stat block for Pokémon, and I glanced at the rest of the page to confirm that it was supposed to be a breakdown of our scores in all relevant and easily-quantifiable shinobi disciplines.

So this was how the _Naruto_ databooks were supposed to be relevant to our lives.

I looked at the chart, and then at the total. It didn't seem possible to have that much of the octagon in red at my age. But the numbers were right there, staring back up at me.

It was one of the few times that the Dreamer and I were in perfect agreement _and_ synchronization.**_ Holy fucking shit_**_._

Part of me, which I was pretty sure had to be Id or maybe an unnamed fourth personality, was gibbering in a corner of my mind and making a noise like "mimble-wimble." Or maybe that was me. The world was retreating and I could see my future flashing before my eyes. It was going be short and explosive.

"Kei? What's so surprising?" Obito asked, leaning over to see what I was looking at. He held up his chart for comparison, though I didn't look at it then.

After a few seconds of my thunderstruck mumbling and some quick math on Obito's part, Obito's eyes went wide and he said, "What the hell? _Twenty-two_?"

I made a whimpering noise and shoved my files into Obito's hands. I didn't want to look at them. Internally, I continued to freak out. _Gotta keep it together, gotta take deep breaths. Just because my scores are insane doesn't mean I'm going to have to take the Chūnin Exams! I don't want to die on the front lines!_ I hid my face in my hands.

Yeah, I was panicking over _getting an awesome score_. Go me. The thing is that, well, I didn't _want_ to be a super special ninja princess sparkly bullshit-meter-breaker. I _wanted_ to have a chance to survive to see thirty, being an average cross-discipline shinobi the whole way, and _maybe_ have enough strength to be useful to the people I cared about and keep them alive. People who stood out got knocked down like bowling pins, and I could name more examples than most.

I didn't want to be Kakashi, in short.

(Sans the princess comment, anyway. He'd look adorable in a dress at this age, even if the mask would break the outfit's synergy like a fortune cookie.)

"…This wasn't exactly the reaction I was going for." Minato-sensei said after a moment.

Kakashi made a dismissive noise that could have meant any number of things but probably came down to "I'm surrounded by idiots."

A hand landed on my head. Going by chakra signatures, all of Team Minato were sitting within a five-foot radius of each other. Kakashi was probably reluctant, but I think he'd live with it.

"Easy, Keisuke-kun." Sensei said, patting my head as though I was some kind of pet. I guess that's what I get for being a kid. Still, he was just a teenage jōnin, so the fatherly angle didn't work so well, and I didn't have any idea what having an older brother would feel like. "Mind telling us what's wrong?"

I groaned. I didn't want to talk about it.

**Look at it this way: Those are yours ****_and_**** mine, as well as that of our parents and teachers,** the Dreamer suggested in the empty echo chamber of my mind. I wasn't coming up with any clever ideas then, that was for sure. **You've been keeping up with everyone by putting your mind to things, I've been helping most of the time I've been properly awake, Mom taught us kenjutsu, Dad taught us taijutsu and chakra control, and Yamaguchi-sensei taught us medical ninjutsu. We are the sum of our pasts, and three awesome teachers.**

Okay. I could think of it that way if I tried.

"I don't think I really deserve that score." I mumbled, seeing the numbers dance on the insides of my eyelids. No one here knew how much of a leg up I'd been given. "I had more teachers than anyone."

Ninjutsu: three out of five, due to medical training. Taijutsu: two, supplemented outside of the numbers with kenjutsu. Genjutsu: three, because it was hard to put a genjutsu on someone whose chakra was aligned to both cast and cancel them, based on sensitivity to foreign chakra. Intelligence: four-point-five, due to my adult mind and nighttime sessions with the Dreamer. Strength: one-point-five even with general chakra boosts. Speed: Two-point-five. Stamina: one-point-five, ignoring the Yin chakra I could probably borrow from the Dreamer if I had to. Hand seals: four, because of loads of extra practice and hyperawareness of the way chakra moved in my body. Total: Twenty-two.

I was all sorts of paper tiger, I thought.

"I noticed that, and I wrote a report to the Hokage on the topic of rotating specialists in the Academy, if that's the result you got." Sensei said. I looked up, and he didn't seem disappointed or anything. To Obito and Kakashi as well as me, he said, "But it's time that we break down our scores, now that we've taken a look. First, though, we're going to pass our files around. Don't worry if Kakashi's and my files have a lot of redacted information."

I rubbed my eyes and nodded. I hadn't cried, but I needed a second.

We passed our folders to the left, which meant that I got a chance to look at Obito's file first.

I memorized his blood type and birthday, which were O and February 10th, respectively, before looking at his assessment.

The first thing I thought was, _That is __**way**__ too low_.

Ninjutsu and stamina were solid twos. Obito's taijutsu, genjutsu, and strength scores sat squarely at one-point-five, while his speed and hand seal ratings were two-point-five each. His lowest score was intelligence, which sat at a rather dismal score of one. All in all, his score was fourteen-point-five. Even the test scores were calling him an idiot.

**That is ****_exactly_**** what Naruto's score was when he graduated.**

Of course she would know that.

Personally, I was pretty sure there was a particular reason for Obito's low scores, and it wasn't just because he was slow. Obito could be remarkably book-dumb, but he was an awkwardly affectionate, sensitive person when he cared about someone and learned far more quickly when we were still attending taijutsu lessons at the Academy. He didn't like reading, he didn't like studying, and he didn't like to be talked down to by people who did. But given that I'd managed to boost my scores through tutoring, I think it was more about what resources Obito lacked than any brainpower.

Obito, who was looking at Kakashi's folder, scowled thunderously. Even though I knew Kakashi _had_ to be impressive.

On second thought, that was probably the problem.

"What does it look like, Obito?" I asked, leaning over and passing Obito's folder to Sensei.

Obito shoved it under my nose. Wow, he really _was_ in a bad mood.

"Keep in mind that scores mean very little in the field." Sensei said, as I scanned Kakashi's file. Mine was in Sensei's hands. "Numbers based on a single point in time can't explain or really assess the effects of fighting under real battlefield conditions. There's no place in these for willpower, determination, or the effects of morale levels."

Kakashi had a total score of twenty-two-point-five, with three separate scores (intelligence, speed, and hand seals) rated higher than three. Barring strength, which was probably dependent on the fact that we were all nine years old and had the same one, none of his stats were lower than two. I doubted the numbers encompassed the stupid levels of experience he had even given how long he'd been a chūnin, but his mission records were entirely blotted out with black ink, so I couldn't be sure.

"Here's an example, Obito-kun." Sensei held out my file, turned so that we could both see it. "See this? Keisuke-kun has high intelligence and hand seal scores, which make it easier for her to pull her nin- and genjutsu scores upward by learning them quickly. On the other hand, her physical scores—speed, strength, and stamina—are actually lower than yours when you add them up." He flipped the folder over and handed it back to me, extending his hand for Kakashi's file. "Now Kakashi was rated as less intelligent than Keisuke despite the fact that he's been in the field longer than both of you, while you and Kakashi were both afforded the same strength and stamina score. Keisuke shares your strength score, too, which means that the physical limitations of your bodies are the problem, not you. You'll all grow out of it."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. I had no doubt whatsoever that he could take both Obito and me in a fight with his eyes closed.

"…Okay, Sensei." Obito mumbled, and Sensei smiled.

"I didn't set these out for you to fight over." Sensei said. He flicked his fingers and all of our files vanished. His was still on the ground. "They're not necessarily accurate, and can seem arbitrary based on things like observer bias and whether or not any of you were holding back for one reason or another. But the general trends—such as the fact that Kakashi needs to work on his genjutsu and Keisuke-kun has some trouble with her stamina, and that we can polish up everyone's taijutsu? That gives us a place to start setting goals."

That made sense. I just hadn't expected that the future Hokage would be so obsessed with number-crunching.

"What are your scores like, Sensei?" I asked. After seeing what we were capable of, I had to wonder what Sensei could do.

Minato-sensei picked up his file and handed it to me. "Take a look."

Turns out that they don't just hand out jōnin report cards to anyone. Sensei's stat chart had been left entirely blank, with only a lonely little number in the corner informing us that he had a total score of thirty-two.

I had a hard time believing that he wouldn't make mincemeat out of literally everything once he got going.

"For today, we're going to set goals and begin working out how to achieve them." Sensei continued, "We'll finish our training today with some sparring sessions so we can all get a feel for each other. Sound good?"

We all nodded, though I was pretty sure none of us really wanted to.

I'd _hated_ setting goals before. It implied work.

**You set goals with me.**

_That's different._

The results of the planning session ended up being this: I'd be running up and down trees until I had more stamina, Kakashi would be trying to cast and dispel genjutsu while paired off with Obito, who also needed to work on his genjutsu, and then we'd have a three-way fight between us kids while Sensei corrected our stances and refereed to make sure we didn't all kill each other.

(Given that Obito and I were completely okay with doubling up to take on Kakashi, this was a more equal prospect than even Kakashi had thought.)

Before we knew it, the afternoon was upon us and we were all hungry, dirty, and tired enough to stop. Except for Sensei. The guy always looked like he could go five _more_ rounds and then kill a dragon at the end of it as a cool-down. It was surreal.

"At this point," Minato-sensei said, pulling Obito and I back to our feet so we'd stop keeping Kakashi in the world's most complex and pointless joint-locks, "Kakashi and I usually go grab a bite to eat before we work on meditation and strategy. Want to join us?"

Obito nodded, though not without a sidelong glare at Kakashi. "Sounds good, Sensei."

For my part, I cast a glance the Memorial Stone. "Um. I'll be along in a second. Gotta do something first."

"Wha—? Oh. I'll wait." Obito said instantly, giving me a concerned look. I was grateful that he seemed to have forgiven me for my stupid display earlier, and silently promised to do everything I could to help him improve.

"It'll just take a second." I repeated, holding up one finger, and I walked over to the stone.

The Memorial Stone is one of several monuments to shinobi in Konoha's history. There used to be an older version here, I'd heard, dating from the days of the First Hokage and the First Shinobi World War. It was just an oversized headstone, with plain stone sides and a space for names in the middle. The one that occupied training ground three, which had been put up since the previous one had started to crumble and had been moved to just below the Hokage Monument, was black marble polished to a reflective sheen. It was shaped like a kunai blade, standing on a three-sided brace of black stone surrounded by concrete and granite, flanked by silver flagpoles. The flat face of the blade had what seemed like hundreds of names written on it.

I could see my reflection looking back at me, around the shadows cast by the small, solid characters spelling out _Wataru Gekkō_. I placed both of my hands together and bowed my head.

Sometimes I couldn't believe it had already been almost four months.

_I'll make you proud, Dad. I'll look after everyone, like you did for us. Don't worry about Hayate and Mom. None of us will forget you, and we won't make you cry._

_Love you._

I wasn't sure if he was listening. I wasn't sure if he was even there. But I felt like, if nothing else, I could at least try.

Prayer finished, I turned around and headed back to my team.

"Ready?" Obito asked.

I slung an arm around his shoulders and squeezed, conveying a wordless _I'm sorry _and _You're still my friend_. "Yeah. Just had to say something to Dad."

Kakashi, I noticed, was looking pointedly away from me. Sensei had his hand on Kakashi's shoulder. I knew why, and felt like something was squeezing my heart.

Minato-sensei sighed, but he didn't seem unhappy. "All right. There's this ramen bar I know…"

* * *

**A/N:** For everyone who was expecting the bell test, sorry! Kei was expecting it too, but the fact is that the bell test doesn't work for Team Minato as they are, and Minato picked up on it.

The reasons are as follows:

Kakashi is already Minato's student, and has been promoted once already. He is also (though this isn't mentioned in the story, since Kei doesn't know about it yet) essentially Minato's ward, given his dad's recent death. Minato won't get rid of him regardless of what the other kids do.

Also, since the core lesson of the bell test is based on self-sacrifice and putting the team's interests ahead of your own, Kei and Obito are unfortunately both too selfless to actually fight over a cat ornament. The bell test falls apart when the genin team in question is less fragmented than Team Kakashi, so Team Kurenai and Team Asuma would have basically made it a joke. Obito wouldn't put his ambitions ahead of a friend, because that's not how his brain is wired, and Kei has the twofold problem of foreknowledge and the fact that she isn't willing to take _anything_ from Obito when he has a shot at things. Their psych profiles (which Minato has, though he hasn't shown them to either kid) outline this fact repeatedly, sans the foreknowledge.

Finally, Minato-sensei isn't Kakashi-sensei and is actually rather looking forward to having a full team of kids to work with. The Bell Test, for this incarnation of Team Minato, is going to wait and is going to be a combat/strategic test when it pops up again.


	17. Ceasefire

I'll be perfectly honest here: the only standards by which the brand-new Team Minato would _not_ be considered a walking disaster zone were those set by the as-yet-unborn members of Team Kakashi in the future. I was pretty sure that the Sannin had a better record than we did at the moment, since if every minute of Team Hiruzen's existence had been a disaster, they probably would have all been dead by twenty despite their skills.

Obito hated Kakashi. It was almost a given. Kakashi was stronger, had graduated younger, had apparently held the affection of every girl in their age group back when he and Obito had actually been in the same class (including Rin), was an arrogant little shit, and spent almost all of his time either talking down to us or beating the crap out of Obito. He'd kind of given up on pounding on me after I asked Sensei for permission to use my bokken, since it gave me range on him and Sensei _hadn't_ given Kakashi the okay to use his dad's tantō. Obito, on the other hand, hadn't received any specialized weapon training and was prone to getting the brunt of things because he was a boy and because of his personality.

_Personally_, I didn't have anything against Kakashi. Most of his vitriol toward life in general was actually a reflection of how much of a fucked-up little kid he still was. But I _didn't_ like the way he treated Obito, and unfortunately my loyalty tended default to chronological order. Ergo, I'd protect my brother before Obito and Rin before Kakashi before anyone else (since most of the rest of the people I knew and cared about could take care of themselves). During practice, I'd have to remind myself that hitting the resident prodigy with a vertigo genjutsu while he was concentrating on Obito was not actually a good thing to do.

I don't think Kakashi hated either of us. It would have required him to view us as more than bugs. Or maybe babies, I suppose. True, he didn't lash out at me as much as he did with Obito, but I'm not sure if it was because I was a girl, because I was a prodigy in my own right, or because I just didn't have Obito's personality. I think he figured he had my measure and then more-or-less erased me from his personal universe.

On the other hand, Obito _made_ Kakashi pay attention to him, if only because he hated being ignored slightly more than he hated Kakashi in general.

It took less than two weeks for Kakashi to give Obito a concussion. We weren't even taking combat missions yet.

Sensei had to knock me on my ass to keep me from hurling myself at Kakashi when Obito just _dropped_, because all of my impulses were saying _kill him_ and not _holy fuck someone call an ambulance_. Then, scooping Obito up from where he'd been lying dazed on the ground, Sensei vanished in a burst of white chakra smoke.

Well, I guess it was possible that Sensei didn't have the hospital marked with a Flying Thunder God seal already. I bet he'd change his ways after this, though.

I sat there for a moment, staring blankly at where they'd both disappeared, and then I stood up. I grabbed my bokken off the ground, tossing its sling on over my shoulder. I dusted myself off. I readjusted my hitai-ate on my head.

Then I walked over to where Kakashi was standing, apparently not quite sure what to do at Sensei's sudden disappearance. It was possible that he didn't even know that head injuries were extremely serious, that anything more than a momentary stunning needed to be looked at in case of brain damage. I wasn't sure what books Kakashi had read, or if he'd really even dealt with brain injuries. Most of the time if shinobi got stunned or knocked out in the field and there wasn't any help nearby, they died. Sometimes horribly.

"Come on. We're going to the hospital." I said.

"Why should we? We can continue training just fine without them." Kakashi said, eyebrows knitting together because of the "you're a prodigy too" and "why do you even hang out with that loser" in his tone, and the way I was frowning back.

I had this urge to introduce my bokken to his face. Or maybe my face. I wasn't sure who I was angrier at.

I held out my hand instead. He and Obito hadn't made the Seal of Reconciliation after the match, but I could at least offer it. It'd keep me from doing something stupid, at least.

"I wasn't fighting you." Kakashi said.

"If Sensei hadn't been there, you would be." I informed him.

Kakashi's eyes narrowed.

Still, he did complete the seal. I think he had enough respect for shinobi traditions to at least allow that much between comrades, even if we weren't friends.

"Anyway," I began, shoving my hands into my pockets as soon as he let go, "I need to get a second opinion about something."

Mainly, whether or not I'd be able to learn how to use chakra scalpels from Yamaguchi-sensei now that he had his own team. Unfortunately, this little episode proved that I was too aggressive when it came to people around me when I was stressed by someone else's injury—too much Kabuto and too little Shizune, in a way. To protect people, I liked the idea of _fighting_ more than I liked the idea of patching people up after, or even in the middle.

The best defense was a good offense and all that.

Kakashi grumbled something as we left the training grounds. We walked about four feet apart and he trailed behind me, apparently to give the impression that we weren't really walking _together_. I wondered if he didn't want to be seen with me or something.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that." I said over my shoulder.

"I said, 'don't you already know medical ninjutsu?'" Kakashi said, more clearly. His tone still implied that I was a lily-livered wannabe ninja more than a peer.

"I know the Mystical Palm one, yes." I said. "Along with a couple of minor healing jutsu, and lots of chakra control exercises."

Someday, I was going to find a way to make the Bullshitting-the-Fish-Test Jutsu relevant to my life.

"What about you?" I asked, because it wasn't as though there was anyone else to talk to.

"What _about_ me?" Kakashi parroted, probably to be annoying.

I frowned, though he couldn't see it. "I mean, do you know any stuff that's particular to you?"

"Nature manipulation," he said tonelessly. "Lightning."

That actually brought up another point I hadn't really considered.

I knew Sensei had developed the Rasengan as a teenager. There wasn't really any other timeframe where he could pulled it off, given how he'd died in his early twenties. in canon. Even after making a stupidly destructive A-ranked technique that was literally _all_ chakra control, he had to have known that his goal of a Wind Release version was years of refinement away from completion. Kakashi had developed the Chidori in a failed attempt to create a Lightning Release Rasengan variant, if I remembered right, even if he only demonstrated it as a teenager.

I wondered if Kakashi knew the Rasengan even at age nine. I also wondered if Obito or I would ever be able to learn it.

More than that, though, I was concerned that I was the only member of my team with no elemental ninjutsu. Obito had Fire Release jutsu to play with as a member of the Uchiha clan, even if he wasn't particularly good at the Grand Fireball technique yet. Sensei probably had a little bit of everything, but mostly Wind Release. I already knew Kakashi was lightning-natured, both from my foreknowledge and the fact that his chakra felt like a sparking wire.

It was kind of weird to realize that I had no idea what my own chakra nature was.

"_Is that the boy_?"

I put my thoughts on pause, wondering why that voice had jumped out at me at all, vehement and yet whispered as it was. Being in the village meant that background chatter was a fact of life, and with Obito as a friend whispers had been following me for a while now, but I'd actually felt Kakashi's chakra shrink back into his skin a little as soon as we left the training grounds behind.

_"Such a pity…"_

I looked back at him. "Kakashi?"

Kakashi's body language was stiff, locked-up in a way that it never was when Sensei was around. He stared straight ahead, eyes narrow and dark with some unknown emotion, and he didn't acknowledge me. He seemed to be looking at something over my left shoulder, and he kept putting one foot in front of the other and walking right past me when I stopped.

Apparently Obito wasn't the only one with All of the Other Reindeer syndrome, even now.

Kakashi's dad was barely six months dead. I didn't know the exact date of the mission that went FUBAR, and I'm pretty sure even now that my parents had kept me close to home because they didn't want me to see the fear, the resentment, and the rampant rumor-mongering that went on in a village that existed because of its secrets. I just knew that in the end, there hadn't been anyone there to stop him from taking the only way out he had left.

Not even Kakashi.

I didn't want to know the specifics.

But I couldn't let him stew in it.

"You know," I said lightly, "I never really wanted to punch people in the face until I met Obito."

That was a complete and total lie. It was also phrased so ambiguously that only people who knew me would be able to see the truth in it. I'd never hurt Obito. I'd come pretty close to hurting the people who hurt him several times already, though.

And only the Dreamer had a handle on just how many people I wished dead, and how much.

Kakashi gave me a sidelong look, trying to gauge my honesty.

"And since I'm probably _going_ _to_ if we keep going this slowly, I offer you a proposition."

One eyebrow went up.

_Whack!_ My open hand smacked into his shoulder, shoving him off balance. And I had my revenge. We were teammates, after all. Comrades. Putting him in the hospital didn't seem like the right thing to do unless our team had suddenly morphed into the Sannin while no one was looking.

"You're It." I informed him.

Kakashi was faster than me. A lot faster, if he wanted to be. That was how I knew that, even as I leapt onto the nearest market roof, he wasn't _really_ trying to catch me.

It did give him an excuse to chase, though, and therefore an excuse to leave the whispers behind.

I wasn't all that great at the kind, compassionate, serene temperament Rin could pull off as easy as breathing. I didn't know how _not_ to be mildly insensitive and prone to flashes of irrational anger. I didn't know how to leave stuff alone.

Oh well.

We made it to the hospital within five minutes. I only got tagged twice, and I was still It when we skidded to a stop outside the door. Just being near the hospital was enough to put me on edge. Aside from the one time Rin and I had brought Obito to see Yamaguchi-sensei, I didn't have a whole lot of good memories of this place. Hayate's crises, periodic childhood shots, and having to follow doctors around like a nurse-capped duckling weren't really the types of things that made up a good impression.

Going by the way Kakashi eyed the doorway, I guess he picked up on my apprehension. It was also possible that he expected Minato-sensei to swoop down on him like some kind of bird of prey and start lecturing him about Not Being A Dick.

Personally, I wasn't convinced that it would take. Ever.

I walked up to the front desk and said to the receptionist, "I'm looking for a patient—Obito Uchiha."

The receptionist glanced up, recognition in her eyes, and said, "Oh, Kei-chan. I didn't know you were coming back."

"Well, I'm not coming back to stay, but I _am _looking for my teammate." I said, shrugging. "Sorry, Shirohana-san."

"Oh, it's no big deal." Ayako Shirohana was one of the receptionists who had been around long enough for her to recognize me from my volunteer hours over the previous year. She wasn't a ninja, but she was studying for her own internship as a civilian nurse and was at least ten years older than I was, with teal hair and brown eyes. I rather liked her, even if she did insist on making me fetch her coffee for her. "Uchiha, Uchiha… Ah! Here we go: he's still in the waiting room. It's just down the hall, though we've got so many people there at the moment that there's interference everywhere. I'm sure you would have found him otherwise."

The thing about coworkers is that they find out a bunch of your secrets, if you're like me. I'd told Ayako that I was a chakra sensor mostly so she'd stop messing with the intercom when she wanted someone to take over for her when she went on break. All she'd have to do once I was around was flare her chakra in a shave-and-a-haircut pattern, and then I'd pop in to take her place for ten minutes or whatever.

Though we'd had to stop doing that once the head nurse found out that she was letting an eight-year-old sub for her.

"Thanks, Shirohana-san. It was nice seeing you again!" With that, Kakashi and I wandered down the hall. I knew exactly which waiting room Ayako had been talking about—I'd only had to clean blood and senbon and kunai out of the linoleum four or five times.

Mini-ninjas make pretty good manual labor, I guess. At least the major combat cases didn't spend a lot of time in said rooms. Else they'd probably all die.

The waiting room was…well, I'll put it this way: the waiting room to my old pediatrician's office was worse. Slightly, and only because the place had involved clown wallpaper. This particular waiting room in Konoha General was almost offensively _beige_. The only spots of color were the bits where someone had apparently decided to stick free bandage samples, crappy outdated magazines, and a painting of a bowl of mangoes.

Almost all of the available chairs were occupied by someone in bandages or looking somewhat dazed, and Minato-sensei and Obito were on the couch. Obito had his eyes shut and was leaning pretty heavily on Sensei. Sensei, for his part, didn't seem to mind all that much, but I noticed that he squeezed Obito's arm to keep him awake. And that there was a bucket nearby, in case Obito had to throw up.

Concussions were nasty business, and the thing with head injuries was that they were a little too complex for my level of medical ninjutsu expertise.

"Hey, Sensei. How's everything?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

Obito groaned. "I've got a killer headache, I'm tired, and I keep seeing stars. And I feel _horrible_."

"All right, at the moment." Minato-sensei said to me. "To be honest, I almost expected something to go wrong sooner."

"You suck, Sensei." Obito grumbled without looking. "You suuuuuuuuck."

I was starting to see why Mom had insisted that Hayate and I train our butts off before we ever met our jōnin-sensei. I hadn't realized that Sensei was still learning, too. He'd been promoted twice by the time he was fourteen, but it didn't change the fact that he was still a teenager training kids.

I sat down to Obito's left, while Kakashi flanked Sensei. He didn't sit down, though. I wonder what his problem with hospitals was.

I bumped Obito's shoulder, gently. "Well, we are training to be ninjas. Since you didn't black out, I think you should probably be fine."

Obito buried his face in Sensei's flak jacket to block out the light, but I still heard his muffled, "Thanks, Kei."

"You'll forgive me if I want a medic to take a look though, right?" Sensei asked, teasing.

I shrugged. I knew my limits. "Okay."

"By the way, Kakashi, you never did complete the seal." Sensei went on, poking Kakashi with his free hand. Kakashi muttered something incomprehensible, sitting down next to Sensei to sulk, but Sensei said, "Come on, don't be like that."

I reached over, behind Sensei's back, and poked him. "And you're It again."

Kakashi gave me an incredulous look. "What, you're _still _doing that?"

"I never stopped." I said.

"When did you two start getting along?" Minato-sensei asked.

"We didn't. I just decided to bug him." I replied. "In the name of vengeance."

Obito snickered, though it was muffled by his mood and Sensei's vest. "Your revenge is Tag?"

"Yep. If I beat the stuffing out of him before you could, you'd complain." I said.

"Like you _could_." Kakashi said.

"While I think the idea of fewer unsanctioned fights is a great idea," Sensei began, "could you two please wait until we aren't in the hospital anymore? The last thing I want to see is how much you can escalate things."

"Oh, yeah. We can save that for training." I agreed.

Minato-sensei snapped his fingers, as though remembering something important. "Speaking of which, Obito. No training for at least a week."

It was Obito's turn to mutter something distinctly unhappy and sullen.

"And if you fall asleep on me, it's going to be two weeks." Minato-sensei said. "Not because I don't like you, but concussions are _not_ something to fool around with. The last thing I want is to see if you can be the youngest patient in the hospital with a brain hemorrhage."

"Yes, Sensei." Obito mumbled.

"And as for you, Keisuke-kun, keep a handle on that temper." Minato-sensei said. I blinked. "Don't think I didn't notice."

_Ehehe_. Whoops.

"I'm not mad anymore." I said.

"Well, no, or else I would have expected murder instead of Tag." Sensei said. "But I have to ask, what set you off anyway?"

"Um." I began. _Shiiiiit_. I looked at Obito, who didn't look exactly conscious.

"He's mostly out." Sensei said, sounding a little exasperated. "We'll start again with him in two weeks. Anyway, like I was saying…"

"Obito gets bullied a lot." I said quietly, uncomfortably rubbing the insides of my arms. It hadn't even been my intention to find out about his home life in the first place, but when he was one of my best friends, it happened anyway. "It didn't exactly stop after he made genin, but…um. He shouldn't have a record for it, but Rin and I had to drag him here to get healed a couple of times."

Kakashi frowned. "The Nohara girl?"

I was kind of surprised that Kakashi even remembered her, but I just nodded. "I worry, okay?"

"Is that why you always show up together?" Sensei asked.

"Yeah. Obito gets distracted easily and he helps people with chores and stuff all the time, which means otherwise he'd be late." I said. I looked at the floor. "And the first day, I…um. I cut in and dragged him away before it got bad."

I wanted to rush back to the Uchiha District and beat the hell out of Yoshi and Matsumaru anyway. It had been a while, but it didn't make the urge any less powerful.

"So that's what I've been doing." I concluded, hoping Sensei and Kakashi wouldn't ask anything else. I only had speculation to go on past that point.

"…I'm going to have to talk to his parents." Sensei said under his breath, though I could hear him perfectly well.

Ahahaha. _No_.

"You should probably ask Obito first." I urged him. "He knows that I know and Rin might, even if she hasn't said anything, but there hasn't been as much trouble since we graduated." Maybe it was just my habitual distrust of everything showing again, but…I didn't trust Obito's parents. I trusted _him_ just fine, but in my head his family was swallowed by this giant called the Uchiha Clan, and there wasn't anyone left to care just about Obito.

That, and at seventeen, I wasn't sure Minato-sensei had all the answers. Actually, I rather doubted it. Even though he was a jōnin and I was just a kid, I had more cumulative years of life experience. It was just the kind of life where almost all battles were fought with words, bureaucracy, and Hellfire missiles launched from UAVs.

"I…I don't know much about clans. Or about having a big family." None of us did, actually. And I hated myself for stumbling over the words, "But for now, I've been dealing with it. Obito's been dealing with it. It's working so far."

"It won't work forever." Minato-sensei said.

"I figure it'll stop once he grows up into a kickass ninja." I admitted. I hoped so, anyway.

Minato-sensei sighed. Kakashi looked away. A very small nurse (or perhaps an assistant) walked into the room with a clipboard, calling the next patient into the exam room.

I wondered if they were thinking about Sakumo.

"Kei-senpai?" It was the nurse-like figure, all dressed in white and…wait. That was Rin's face and her purple tattoos.

I grinned. "Rin-chan! How have you been?"

Rin smiled. "Pretty well. You?"

"Okay. But, uh…" I made a helpless gesture at Obito.

To Rin's credit, she immediately looked at Obito before anyone else. She actually ignored Sensei and Kakashi entirely, eyes dark with concern, and I pinched Obito (subtly) in an attempt to get him to wake up and say hello.

He blinked, but he mostly looked unfocused and annoyed and _oh god why did we let him fall asleep_.

"Rin." I said.

Rin's eyes went narrow and dark and Sensei was alert inside of a second. Kakashi was booted off the couch because I wasn't feeling charitable at all and Obito needed the space, and Rin raised her hands. They were already glowing, but not with the faint green of medical chakra. Instead, there was a faint bluish screen between her hands, and she brought it to Obito's head.

_So that's what the diagnostic jutsu looks like,_ I thought, memorizing the way it felt.

"…So, apparently Rin's been busy." I said, apropos of nothing. Rin seemed too distracted to offer a comment.

"Did she graduate the same time that you did?" Minato-sensei asked.

"Yep." I was so far past freaking out that I was almost serene. I must have used up all of my anger, fear, and possessiveness earlier. "Though I never did get a clear picture of what happened after. She was one of the top two kunoichi in the class, but she wasn't placed with Obito and me."

Because Kakashi was.

"You seem to have had a very busy life as a student." Sensei commented neutrally.

"I had really good teachers outside of school." I said, not looking at him.

Mom. Dad. Yamaguchi-sensei. And the Dreamer, given how much I bounced ideas off of her.

"So I see."

I think I could _hear_ Sensei stepping up his training plans. Agh.

"I think you and Obito should start working on pair training, after he recovers." Sensei said speculatively.

"What is that and why?"

"It's specialized teamwork, and because you'll both get much stronger."

I was not convinced. Mainly because every time a ninja said "to become stronger" I kept thinking that someone was going to sell their soul to something. Such as a snake demon.

It was at about that time that I felt Rin's chakra calming down again, so I decided to ignore my impending doom in favor of my friend. Obito, it seemed, had fallen back asleep without so much as a word in greeting.

"Obito will be okay, Kei-senpai!" Rin said, obviously stressed but not actually panicking. I figured that was enough. "It's true that we don't like it when concussed patients fall asleep, but it doesn't seem as serious as it could be.

"In that case, I'll let this one slide. And I'll make sure to let Obito know we saw you and you're doing great," I said, distracted by another thought, "Also, when did you start calling me senpai and why didn't I get the memo?"

"Oh! Um." Rin leaned in, as though sharing a secret. "I'm Akihito-shishō's apprentice now."

I had officially blown a hole in causality and changed one of the subsets of my visions by existing. Go me.

"That's great, Rin-chan! Though I have to hear how it happened." I glanced back at Sensei and Kakashi, of whom looked amused and the other of the two looking apathetic. "Later. Sorry, Rin-chan. Anyway, these two are Minato-sensei and Kakashi. Though I think you already know Kakashi."

Rin paused. "You were in our class when we were five, weren't you, Kakashi-kun?"

So Kakashi still rated a "-kun" while Obito was just that? Crap.

"Probably." Kakashi said with a shrug.

Jackass.

I sighed. "Anyway, Rin-chan, how long until Obito's up and about?"

"About an hour, probably, and I would still recommend seeing Akihito-shishō or another medic-nin to be sure. He'll want to sleep the rest of the day off, though." Rin looked sad. "Though I have to ask, how did it happen?"

I pointed wordlessly at Kakashi.

Let it never be said that I wasn't petty.

Later, I did manage to find out that Yamaguchi-sensei had utterly flunked his team. I didn't hear why, exactly, but the boys went to the Genin Corps while he picked Rin as his personal apprentice. Since my sense of compassion was somewhat truncated when it came to people I didn't actually know, I decided that the best thing to do would be to support Rin any way I could. She seemed happy, having a purpose in life and something she was really good at, so I wasn't going to hold her back at all.

I still invited her home for dinner, though.

I decided that learning chakra scalpels could wait for a bit. I had some catching up to do.

* * *

**A/N:** Review responses...

Kasume Hagase: Actually, the bell test is a fairly well-known training exercise, at least when it comes to people taught by Hiruzen Sarutobi or Jiraiya. Team Minato will be running into the bell test later.

And I'll be writing the rest of the review responses tomorrow. Sorry, it's going to be another busy day.

Also: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING! :D


	18. A Different Kind of Graduation

I know I'm not sane. I knew it even when I was nine years old and still getting my feet under me.

Thoughts like that don't just come out of nowhere. The split personality/sanity preserving mental construct that the Dreamer turned out to be hadn't just come out of nowhere, after all. Neither had Id. Partitioning parts of one's mind off from the rest is not a sign of a stable, well-adjusted individual. Just look at Dark Naruto or Inner Sakura and the way they were born of a disconnection between inner and outer selves that their originators denied but nevertheless still experienced.

Inner Sakura, I'll admit, was probably more dramatic and less practical. Hide behind a mask for too long and you start to forget what's supposed to be underneath it, unless you let it out to play every once in a while.

Dark Naruto had been a justified reaction to systematic rejection by Konoha as a whole. Whatever else I could say about the Naruto in my visions, "happy childhood" was not a thought that came to mind despite his habitual fox smile. Suppressing those feelings had probably been the only thing keeping Naruto from ripping the seal to bits and letting the Kyuubi loose again, other than ignorance. That, and hope that tomorrow would be better.

Precognition is the antithesis of hope.

It's the precursor to fear.

I don't think any normal older sister, particularly one who had breezed through the Academy with perfect scores inside of a year, would have reacted the way I did when Hayate and Mom announced at dinner that he'd be joining the Academy the next year.

"Sis, you're gonna attend my ceremony, right?" Hayate asked.

I couldn't help it. I froze up. My chopsticks stopped halfway to my mouth. My right arm started shaking so badly that the soba noodles flopped right off the end of them. I couldn't breathe over the force of my own helplessness. The room was getting smaller, wasn't it?

_GET UP, HAYATE! PLEASE, GET UP!_

In hindsight, I suppose it was somewhat fitting that my first reaction was fear and not rage. My first memory of Hayate had always been the worst. It was the fact that all I could do was _watch_…

"Kei-chan?" Mom asked.

I think I froze for about a total of five seconds before I was interrupted.

**WAKE UP!** the Dreamer screamed at me, giving me the equivalent of a mental slap across the face. **This is not the time to get caught in a vision!**

I blinked. Mom was standing in front of me, her hands on my shoulders, with Hayate by her side. I blinked at him, too, trying to shake the image of the dead special jōnin he might grow up to be. Then and there, he was too small, his face too round and unmarked, and he looked up at me in blank innocence, as though any protests against his decision to become a ninja were from completely out of context.

Which they kind of were.

Mom let go of my shoulders. "Kei-chan, are you feeling all right?"

"Just a little tired, Mom." I said, hugging Hayate. He made a confused noise, but he let me do it. "Sensei's been keeping us busy this whole month, and I haven't been getting enough sleep."

He had, actually. Whatever other adjectives could be used to describe Minato Namikaze, "lazy" was not one of them, and he didn't like to see it in his students either. As for not getting enough sleep…well, I don't think I'll ever have enough sleep after a life like this. I'd been pretty bad before, too, but this was ridiculous as well as self-destructive. I'd probably head back my former habit of sleeping whenever I could, wherever I could, and I could already see that becoming a problem.

The visions had never intruded on my waking hours before, though.

The Dreamer replied, **I hope you plan on training soon. Holding your visions back is like trying to plug a breached dam with your bare hands. I don't have enough chakra to pull this off forever at your current level.**

Shit.

_It would be __**really**__ nice to know why the fuck I keep getting them in the first place_, I thought viciously.

Setting my chin on top of my brother's head, I said, "So, the Academy already? I was three years older than you when I joined up!" Funny how that had been only a year ago.

"He's as good as any clan student at this point." Mom said, ruffling my hair. She'd apparently decided to let the issue lie.

"I'll be fine. If you could do it, so can I!" Hayate insisted, and he wiggled enough out of my grip that he could put his head on my shoulder. He squeezed my ribs reassuringly.

"Well, don't try to graduate _too_ early." I said. I let him out of my grip so I could poke him in the forehead to keep his attention on me.

"Sis!" Hayate protested.

"I'm serious, Hayate-chan!" I said, "I barely got a year to learn everyone's names and figure out who might be okay to be on a team with, and I got lucky. _You_ should enjoy your days in the Academy, because I'm gonna help Mom drill you into the ground when you get home."

"You're the worst sister ever." Hayate said, pouting.

"Speaking of drills," Mom broke in, "Kei-chan, it's about time that you had your second graduation ceremony."

I gave Mom a strange look over Hayate's head. "Um. What?"

"You can't carry that bokken out into the field, Kei-chan." Mom said patiently. "I know I haven't had a chance to teach you much about the difference between bokken and a kodachi or katana, but I won't allow you to take C-ranked missions without a proper blade."

"D-does that mean…?" I trailed off, too overwhelmed to speak.

"After one last assessment, I'll determine which blade you'll be using and buy one for you." Mom said, nodding. "It won't be the best quality in the world, but it should be enough to get you started until you can accept upper-level missions and afford a good one."

Oh. I'd forgotten about the family money trouble for a while. I'm an idiot. Mom was killing two birds with one stone—with Hayate in the Academy and me as a genin, she _might_ be able to reenter the active roster and actually get something like an income. At the moment, we were living off her and dad's savings and I had no idea how much was left.

Shit.

"Meet me at the usual training fields in an hour, all right? There's still enough daylight to take care of this." Mom smiled, and after we were all done eating like normal people, she disappeared. I only had to check the slot above the couch to realize that all of the training swords were gone with her.

Was I imagining things or did Mom look kind of bloodthirsty when she'd said that?

And then I realized that she left me with the dishes. _Sigh_. Mom, really?

Anyway, I grabbed my bokken and Hayate and headed to the training ground. Hayate wasn't really on a set school or training schedule, so I guess it wasn't any trouble that he tended to follow me. I figured he'd want to witness his big sister's ignoble defeat at the hands of Mom, anyway, which would probably encourage him to listen to Mom forever. At least he probably wouldn't cut his fingers off with his shinai.

…Though I might have been underestimating the ingenuity of small children on that count.

When we got to the training field, Mom was waiting for us in her training gi and the sun was starting to dip behind the tree-line. Hayate climbed one of the nearby maples and sat on the lowest limb, while I unstrapped my bokken and brought it up in front of me in a defensive pose.

"Remember, Kei-chan, this is your final test. Your task is to touch me three times, or else achieve a possibly fatal injury. Got it?"

I was going to get my ass quite thoroughly kicked and I knew it. Still, I nodded.

"You can do it, Sis!" Hayate called, and Mom charged while I was processing it.

Mom was _fast_. I still wasn't completely sure of her rank, though at that moment I was thinking "special jōnin with a combat focus" and "oh shit." Not exactly in that order, though.

I was blocking as soon as I could perceive the strikes, but she had the force of her chakra moving in perfect synch. I was being driven back not just by the weight and strength difference, but by the force of her chakra and her skill. I was practically skidding along the ground, too surprised to compensate by using my chakra to keep traction on the dirt.

_Damn it, I'm not losing without putting up a fight._

The Dreamer chose that moment to jump in. **NOW!**

I focused my chakra into the bottoms of my feet and _heaved_. Mom was thrown back for a split second by the force of my chakra, but that was all.

I'd only won a second's reprieve, so I immediately turned and bolted for the nearest tree. I didn't have strength, stamina, experience, skill, or reach on her. All I had was my brain, and the Dreamer.

That, and a willingness to do a lot of stupid things.

I could feel Mom following me so, without giving her a chance to respond, I ran right up the tree's bark and past Hayate, weaving between branches too close together for Mom to easily follow. I only needed a second to do what was necessary…

Mom appeared in front of me and _crack_ went the sound of my ribs under duress.

Or, you know, that would have been the sound if I'd actually still been there.

I got a good look at Mom's stunned face at my seal-less Replacement Jutsu from about three trees over. Suppressing my chakra signature to almost nothing, I used the bare minimum necessary for a camouflage genjutsu. It wasn't strong, or even particularly useful in most situations, but seeming like I was actually crouching a few inches to my right thanks to simultaneous use of the Clone Jutsu could be a lifesaver.

Mom dropped out of the tree, spotted my clone, and the next thing I knew she was practically in my face, bokken chopping neatly through my illusion.

Yeah, I was really gonna have to work on my speed.

And that was about when I brought my own bokken crashing into her ribs.

_Bomph!_

Turned out Mom knew how to make shadow clones. Shit.

Thank the merciful creator deities of your choice for camouflage techniques, even if Mom probably knew where I was. Of the various clone techniques, shadow clones remained the only ones that transferred the information they picked up directly to their creators. They also required a massive amount of chakra to create in useful numbers, unlike the various elemental clones, but Mom demonstrated quite handily that most ninjas didn't _need_ more than one.

Guess Naruto was compensating for his early-series weaknesses, then.

**Our mother is too strong to take on directly or without distractions,**the Dreamer pointed out unhelpfully. **She's to our right. Ten degrees. Fifteen meters.**

I had my chakra running slow and low, almost as imperceptible as natural energy to normal people, and I think that was why I managed to catch Mom by surprise with my second rapid-fire and seal-less replacement with a tree branch. I had enough chakra control for any jōnin, and it just barely made up for my total lack of chakra resources.

I was so out of my depth it wasn't even funny.

Still. I didn't plan on losing without a fight.

The second time Mom and I clashed blade-to-blade, it was in midair. I was promptly sent careening into the ground, though I got my feet under me in time and used the momentum to zoom off into the underbrush. The G-forces I pulled then were more than I remembered even in my old life, on a rollercoaster.

The funny thing about shinobi kenjutsu is how much time you spend airborne, really. And how much time is spent setting up or reacting to ambushes. When you get down to it, a katana was actually a handicap for a ninjutsu specialist, because of the basic fact that most shinobi need both hands to do basically anything with their chakra. About the only seal most of us could make would be the Seal of Confrontation, which is _supposed_ to be a half-seal and barely works in any sense of the word, even for activating exploding tags (unless you're Deidara) or for focusing one's chakra (unless you're Deidara).

Or the Seal of Reconciliation, but that's a ceremonial thing and not really relevant to my situation.

Fuck it. I cast outward with my chakra sense, confirming my mother's position and that of another shadow clone.

**Eleven o'clock, seventeen meters,** the Dreamer confirmed.

I killed the clone with a thrown kunai before scurrying off into the underbrush to avoid Mom's inevitable counterattack.

That was about when Hayate landed on my back, knocking the wind out of me and sending me crashing right to the ground. I actually face-planted in the dirt.

"Get off, Hayate-chan." I said, my voice muffled by the ground.

Mom was _so_ cheating.

"But I'm going to help!" Hayate insisted, getting off and drawing his shinai. "Mommy's not being fair!"

Mom came rushing out of nowhere, smashing her bokken into mine as I barely managed to raise my arms to divert it away from Hayate. I was on the defensive, even with Hayate barking at Mom's heels and swinging his shinai _just _after she'd moved out of the way or gotten her bokken up to deflect the blows. I aimed a thrust at her ribs, but she turned the tip of my bokken aside with barely a thought.

And then she cracked me in the ribs with it, which knocked the air from my lungs for the second time in five minutes. Hayate immediately went to fill the gap, blocking our mom's swings with astonishing solidity for a kid.

That said, he was promptly knocked ass over teakettle when Mom swept his legs out from under him.

Okay, my little brother was adorable with his little training sword, but seriously? I was going to die if he kept it up. I didn't have the skill to defend him _and_ complete my test.

**Maybe that's the point.**

…Mom had a bell test.

_GOD FUCKING DAMMIT._

I stepped over him, planting my feet with chakra, and met our mom's slash with everything I had. Behind me, Hayate got to his feet and threw his arms around my waist, bracing me as much as he was trying to just cling to me. He was shaking—he'd never seen Mom like that. I hadn't either, but I had more of an idea of what to do.

Mom's and my bokken started to crack at the point of contact.

"Why won't you dodge, Kei-chan?" Mom asked, almost serene despite the countdown to splinters flying into our faces.

"Like hell I'll leave my brother alone!" I snarled back, chakra surging to reinforce my muscles. "If I dodge, Hayate gets flattened, or used as a kunai, and I'm not letting you!"

_Blood on the rooftop, wind blades whistling through the air, a choked-off scream…_

_Remnants of red sand and splintered wood, the metallic gleam of a dismembered Melody Arm weapon, the curl of blood and sweat and steel in the night…_

_"You should have tried harder…"_

For a second, I didn't see Mom. I saw Baki, and I saw Kabuto, and I had enough hate in my blood for any Uchiha _including_ Tobi. "I will _never_ let anyone hurt him!" I threw everything I had into it. It wasn't going to be enough. It wasn't ever going to be enough.

But like hell I'd let that stop me.

_Crack._

Mom's eyes widened.

Hayate squeaked.

I used the Replacement Jutsu. For me _and_ for Hayate.

We both landed back in the clearing, since I'd replaced us with a couple of rocks and trusted that Mom could get out of trouble on her own. I was shaking, reeling from the effects of the vision crossing with my reality and from sparring with Mom at full tilt, and Hayate was sprawled across my ribcage. He didn't seem like he was interested in moving, given how noodle-like he was acting.

"Sis?" Hayate mumbled into my shirt.

"Yeah, Hayate-chan?" I puffed.

"You scared me back there." Hayate said, rolling over so he was lying with his head back against my stomach. "I've never seen you so mad."

"I scared myself too, Hayate-chan." I mumbled, ruffling his hair with my right hand. "And I hope I never do that again."

Mom reappeared, standing above us with nary a scratch on her. She actually looked worried, and I realized belatedly that I was running worryingly low on chakra. Hayate was still a little unsteady, too. I don't think he'd insisted on clinging to me so much since we were really little.

"Kei-chan? Hayate-chan?"

"We're okay, Mom." I said, sitting up with difficulty. Hayate managed to cram himself into the space between my side and my left arm and latch his arms around my ribs, which made it a little hard to breathe and made me feel like I had some kind of growth attached to me.

That was about when Mom swept us both up into a somewhat strangling hug.

I did end up getting a sword. It was a rather nice kodachi, for all that I was still a ways away from my full growth and full potential. I practiced with it for a week before Mom dared let me carry it without a bokken for backup, because she didn't want me to cut my fingers off. She didn't really seem to care if I cut anyone else's fingers off.

It was a pretty nasty surprise for Kakashi the next time we sparred, though, to my everlasting glee.


	19. A Day in the Life of Team Minato

In Team Minato, team practice went a little like this:

Obito and Kakashi always sparred first. I think Sensei was trying to see if he could wear them out before either one faced me, which was nice but probably not entirely necessary. I didn't need to be coddled. It was a house rule of sorts that we could only escalate the fight to jutsu and weaponry if Sensei said so. And since Obito didn't have a sword or any training in using one, and Kakashi only had a tantō, I didn't get to use my kodachi as much as I'd have liked.

So, after Kakashi and Obito beat the crap out of each other, with Obito ending the match with the most developing bruises, I'd spar with one of the boys. If I still had any chakra to spare afterward, I'd also fix everyone up as best I could. Not because I was better than the hospital, but more because I needed the practice and because they were convenient guinea pigs.

I maintained that the only reason I ever won was because I was completely willing to be a cheating little shit and also because I bit people. It was easier than saying or thinking that either of my teammates had weaknesses.

"Well, I think we're just about ready to take on our D-ranked mission for today," Minato-sensei said after we finished. We hadn't _actually_ beaten the stuffing out of one another this time, so we'd probably make it through a D-rank or two without complaining too much.

Still, Obito groaned theatrically. I sighed. Kakashi made a noise in the back of his throat that made his opinion of having to do D-ranks as a chūnin _very_ clear.

All things considered, though, I was kind of surprised that Sensei even stuck around for our D-ranks anymore. While I knew he was still a teenager, if an insanely talented one, I kept thinking that as Konoha's Yellow Flash, he ought to be in the field _doing_ things. Kakashi was probably used to tagging along as the world's deadliest puppy, because I couldn't see Minato-sensei being deployed anywhere without him.

I wondered if having Obito and me around was actually slowing down the war effort, given how deadly Sensei could be. Then again, I also didn't know yet if Sensei even _had_ his wartime reputation. I knew that he'd earned the nickname and killed probably two or three hundred enemy shinobi by the time Team Minato had their first casualty. That reputation was part of what got him sent on the mission to the front lines while Kakashi, Obito, and Rin got themselves nearly killed in Grass territory.

And _that_ would all come to a head within four years.

It'd be nice to get my hands on a Bingo Book. Even if it was just a copy from Konoha, anyone more dangerous than the average chūnin was listed, just in case. Then I'd have an idea of who would be active and dangerous enough to either avoid or expend all of the team's explosives allowance to kill.

Not that that would be enough for some of the freaks of nature running around even now. Kisame Hoshigaki kept coming to mind for some reason.

Leaving my worries of the future aside for a while, I trailed the rest of Team Minato as we headed into the mission office.

The odd thing was that, even in wartime, the Hokage always overlooked the entire room. While I suppose that leaving missions of critical importance was generally not the type of thing a chūnin could be trusted with, we were getting a D-rank. It wasn't exactly a matter of national security, but I supposed even Hiruzen Sarutobi needed to stay in practice. He gave out _really_ important missions from his office, and we hadn't been called there yet.

Well, I'm sure that Kakashi and Sensei had, but Obito and I were green enough that it probably wouldn't happen for a while.

"Team Minato reporting for duty, Hokage-sama." Sensei said once we'd all trooped in. Kakashi's back was as straight as a plank, always professional in the presence of someone who could call him on failing to meet expectations, while Obito bounced on the balls of his feet and I maintained my habitual slouch. Good posture was for people who thought they had a good chance of reaching thirty, or Kakashi.

I'd actually left my kodachi at home, because I figured—

"Your mission is to report to the hospital and assist the staff in any way necessary," the Hokage said.

Yep. Chore mission, again.

Obito actually slumped, while I sighed inwardly. Every two weeks, like clockwork, it was time to head back to the hospital and get up to our elbows in trash bins, mops, brooms, and laundry detergent. I hadn't liked that part of the job much even when I'd been volunteering with Yamaguchi-sensei and learning as I went. Whenever the hospital put out a request for an actual D-rank, though, I knew I wasn't even going to get that much out of it.

At least we'd probably see Rin there.

When we got to the hospital, Ayako Shirohana met us at the front door. She shoved a mop into Obito's hands, gave Kakashi a trash bag, broom, and dust bin, and I was loaded down with dirty linens. We were all promptly told to get to work until our jobs were over, at which point we'd converge on the rest of the laundry and beat it to death with sticks and soap. When I looked toward Sensei for confirmation, or at least sympathy, he was already gone. I could still sense his presence nearby, but I kind of wondered if he'd been drafted into patient-transporting duty.

So, all in all it was a pretty typical mission.

That said, I wondered why I was on laundry duty when Kakashi and Obito were more or less both put on cleaning duty, likely with overlapping assigned areas, but I supposed that they'd have to learn how to deal with each other _somehow._ I wouldn't always be around to mediate or punch someone, and neither would Sensei.

Frowning, I made a mental note to check on the boys if I went twenty minutes without feeling something or other. I couldn't entirely trust Obito to keep on task, and Kakashi would probably use his full ninja speed just to finish his assignment faster. So would Sensei, actually, and as far as I could tell he was at least still in the building.

I decided to leave it to him.

I made my way up to the roof about an hour later, gratified to know that at least Obito and Kakashi's most recent spat hadn't ended with anyone needing medical attention (because there was only so much damage a pair of nine-year-old children could do with dust-bins and buckets). I still had a basket of linens to hang to dry, and enough clothespins to suspend a small child up from a washing line with little trouble.

It'd have been a cinch if it wasn't for the fact that there were about enough of said washing lines and linen sheets to qualify as a small forest.

I sighed. Might as well get started.

The Dreamer commented idly, **I find it hard to believe that Team Kakashi could enter the Chūnin Exams with dozens of this sort of mission under their belt and vanishingly few C-ranks.**

There wasn't enough training in the world to make up for a total lack of field experience, in my opinion. I hoped Sensei would come up with something to bridge the gap, or else we'd probably all die on our first team C-ranked mission. I had no doubt whatsoever that, as the team partially composed of the walking neuroses eventually responsible for the Fourth Shinobi World War, our missions would not go smoothly once the risk of enemy ninjas became reality.

There was the brief puff of wind chakra and displaced air as Sensei appeared behind me. "Are you doing all right, Kei-kun?"

"Yes, Sensei." I said without looking, shaking one of the sheets out. It was still damp and twice as heavy as it needed to be.

Flare out, snap, done. Clothespins next…

"You're awfully quiet today." Sensei commented.

I glanced at him. He was sitting on one of the overturned baskets that had been sitting up here since who-knew-when, as innocent as a puppy after demolishing its owner's shoe collection. I didn't trust that look. I said, "There wasn't a lot to talk about. Ayako-san expects me to do a good job, Obito and Kakashi are busy somewhere else, and folding laundry means I only have pigeons to talk to."

As though to illustrate my point, two of the aforementioned birds flew overhead. Thankfully, they did _not _do the typical pigeon thing and crap all over everything.

Sensei made a neutral noise. "You don't have to be on the defensive."

I sighed, returning to my sheets. _Shake, snap, flare…_

"On a related topic, I was going to ask you something." Sensei said. I sensed him stand up and walk over to the basket, pulling one of the sheets out to help me. "So, have you considered the idea of doubles training with Obito?"

"I have, though I don't have any idea where to start." I admitted. To be honest, training to fight in sync with a specific partner was probably the solution to my problem with Obito's combat skills. I just didn't want to depend on anyone in a full fight, and I also didn't want to exclude Kakashi from what amounted to our "in-group." Sure, Kakashi didn't appear to give a damn, but he was nine. Most opponents would be stronger, faster, and have more reach when compared to him at this age. It felt a little like I'd be leaving him vulnerable, even if I _knew_ that Obito and I were the team's real weaknesses. "The level of understanding we'd have to have, both about our mindsets and our fighting styles… It's pretty daunting."

"But not insurmountable." Minato-sensei pointed out, clipping the sheets onto the line well above my head.

"How many people have you known who _have_ trained for tandem fighting?" I asked curiously.

"A few." Sensei said lightly. It was not a helpful thing to say. "Most of them had at least one Uchiha or Hyūga involved, but I'll grant you that it isn't necessarily common."

No shit, Sensei. Half of the point of the Sharingan was the ability to predict someone else's movements, while the Byakugan made it possible to see everything in a range that was frankly kind of ridiculous. I remembered that Hinata, while not exactly having the best detail for an all-Jyūken tenketsu-maiming fight, still managed to see in a range of up to ten kilometers by the time of the Fourth Shinobi World War. "What makes you think Obito and I can pull it off?"

"It's because you want to be able to do it." Sensei replied, looking down at me fully. I blinked upward at his suddenly steely blue eyes. "Kei-kun, I know you have some trouble with how protective you are of Obito. But you both need to stand on your own two feet sooner or later."

"I understand, Sensei." I said. Sooner would be better, if the Kannabi bridge mission was still in the cards. A thought struck me. "We're probably going to upgrade to C- and B-ranks soon, aren't we?"

Minato-sensei paused. "What makes you say that?"

"Kakashi's too talented to waste his skills cleaning hospital rooms." I said, flicking another sheet out full-length with a simultaneous flick of my wrists. "And your score on the report alone puts you on par or better than most of the jōnin we're fielding now, which means keeping Obito and me in the village to hone our teamwork is actually holding the village back a bit. Kakashi probably took missions with you before, and holding both of you in reserve… It's a waste."

Sensei's hand landed on my head. On a related note, I hated being short.

"You're too hard on yourself." Sensei told me. "You and Obito both."

I shrugged. "It's not being unfair if it's true, Sensei."

Honestly, I think it was a little like Team Kakashi in some ways. While, granted, Sasuke wasn't exactly on mini-Kakashi's level, the fact remained that Kakashi was almost too valuable then to waste on training a gang of brats. I think it had mostly to do with the fact that, as a prodigy whose whole _thing_ was information analysis and learning stuff faster than anyone had before, he'd probably never actually learned how to break down his techniques for someone else to learn. Teaching other people how to break down his best techniques was probably anathema to him. He had also never seemed super interested in the idea of actually teaching anyone anything, ever, and I wasn't sure I could really blame him for it.

I'd have probably requested a transfer from Team Seven if they'd been my students.

I went on, "Also, while we've been training against each other, we've never actually _fought_ anyone, genuinely." I thought that over. "Well, I'm sure Obito thinks he has, but Kakashi isn't ever _really _trying to kill him." And my mom didn't count, no matter what form _her_ final test had taken.

Sensei sighed. He seemed like he wanted to ruffle my hair, like he probably did with Kakashi when Obito and I weren't around, but my bandanna hitai-ate remained an obstacle. "You'll do fine, Kei-kun."

I sure hoped so, though I wasn't at all sure it would go so smoothly.

"Hey, we're done with the lower floors!" Obito said, bursting out onto the roof. I took one look at him and had to keep from laughing, because there was no way I was letting him anywhere near the clean linens with mop water all over him.

Kakashi, who appeared about a second later, seemed to have had a dustbin upended on his head.

It was nice to see the boys were getting along.

I said, "I hope you're not planning on getting anywhere near the linen looking like that."

Obito paused, assessing his condition and Kakashi's in a quick glance. "Well, no laundry duty for us."

Kakashi gave him a sidelong glare just as Minato-sensei said, "Go get washed up, you two."

I made shooing motions with the sheet, just so Obito would get the message. He pouted at me. "Really, Kei? With the sheets?"

"Yep. Get lost." I said. The boys skedaddled.

I saw Sensei open his mouth to say something, but I wasn't really paying much attention to him because there was another chakra signature approaching at an insane speed. I snapped my mouth shut so quickly that I felt my teeth click together and turned to face the oncoming chakra monster. From the way it was moving, it was running _up_ the side of the building…

The next thing I saw was green. Lots of it.

"_DYNAMIC ENTRY_!"

Sensei _moved_, grabbing the intruder out of the air and holding him up by his belt—a red-banded hitai-ate—before he could slam his feet into my face. I'd dropped into a defensive crouch, hand on my kunai pouch before I even really processed what was happening, and then I paused.

Unless there was another taijutsu monster in green running around, Sensei had caught a miniature Gai. The bowl cut and gigantic eyebrows (far dwarfing whatever issues I'd had with mine in another lifetime) made it obvious.

For a second or two, all three of us just sort of stood there like the world's weirdest statue, and then Sensei dropped the genin Gai on the roof.

"While it's nice to see you again, Gai-kun, Kakashi is actually a floor down at the moment." Minato-sensei told the genin, mild as ever. "You just missed him."

"Oh," said mini-Gai. He paused, then he bowed deeply. "My deepest apologies for almost committing the unforgivable mistake of striking an unprepared Konoha ninja! I am Maito Gai! Who are you?"

"Keisuke Gekkō." I said, holding out my hand. One of these days, I was going to contemplate the mystery of how Rock Lee and Maito Gai's names were _always_ in the same order. Then again, "Lee Rock" and "Gai Maito" just sounded weird. Maybe they were really titles? Hell if I knew.

He took it, shaking it enthusiastically. It almost felt like my arm was about to be pulled off after a certain point. "It is very nice to meet you, Keisuke-san! Are you my rival Kakashi's new teammate?"

"One of two, yes." Yeah, I was going to need my hand back sometime before my shoulder or elbow decided to pop out of joint. "How long have you been a ninja, Gai-san?"

"I graduated from the Academy when I was seven," he replied cheerfully. "And you?"

"Obito and I just graduated in the last month." I said, shrugging with my free shoulder. "We're not exactly awe-inspiring yet, and—"

There was a muffled thud from the stairwell. Gai finally let go of my hand, distracted, and I clasped my hands behind my back so he couldn't see me trying to massage feeling back into my fingers. Taijutsu was clearly his specialty already, if he could cause _that_ without even trying.

"…And we still have our problems getting used to the new arrangements." I concluded, glancing at the door. "Sensei, I'm not totally sure they _won't_ kill each other."

"Then it's my job to stop them, Kei-kun." Minato-sensei replied, and he handed me another sheet so that he could do just that and keep me _just_ busy enough that I wouldn't test out Gai's Dynamic Entry on Kakashi's face if he turned out to have hurt Obito somehow. Then he disappeared down the stairs.

I looked at Gai. "Sorry, we're really supposed to be on a D-ranked mission at the moment. It's just that Kakashi and Obito are too busy trying to beat the hell out of each other to actually _work_."

"Then my eternal rival is slipping!" Gai told me. "He has never been the kind of shinobi to neglect a mission before!"

I held up a linen sheet dubiously and said, "I kind of doubt this is what he considers a real mission."

"True! My rival has been on much higher-ranked missions before, but he is not lazy and it must mean that you and Obito-san are more interesting than missions, Keisuke-san!"

Well, that was one way to look at it.

About a second later, Minato-sensei reappeared with Obito and Kakashi in hand. Specifically, he was holding Kakashi by the back of his shirt and Obito by one ankle. They looked somewhat scuffed-up, but they were at least dust-free and didn't seem to have thrown each other out any windows. It was about the best I could ask for.

"Hello again, my eternal rival Kakashi!" Gai enthused, making Obito blink at him even while upside-down. Kakashi just rolled his eyes.

"Kakashi, do you know this guy?" Obito asked in a strangely flat voice. I think he was in awe of the mystique of one Maito Gai, even if it sounded more like total disbelief.

"No," said Kakashi.

It was the closest thing to a non-hostile interaction between the two boys in a month. Even after Sensei dropped them both and went back to hanging the laundry.

"Again with that cool and hip attitude!" Gai shouted. "I challenge you to a match of your choice! If I lose, I will walk five laps around the village, on my hands!"

I clipped another sheet up. Obito seemed too distracted by their bizarre male bonding ritual to remember that he was supposed to help me. "Go team." I muttered.

In the end, the Duel of the Day was decided by Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Gai lost. We didn't see him for the rest of the day, though we did occasionally hear about a green-clad genin racing around the city on his hands and almost kicking a few civilians in the face.

* * *

**A/N:** The thing that gave me the most trouble this chapter? Figuring out how to deal with Gai and Lee's name order conundrum. It actually _is_ the same in both Japanese and English.

Also, a HUGE thank-you to everyone for their wonderful reviews, PMs, and other general encouragement. :)


	20. Dive In

It took about two months for us all to get bored to the point of utter insanity. Sensei might not have liked the idea of having us on C-ranks before we could, say, beat the crap out of each other some more, but even he couldn't deny that he was getting a little restless. Sure, we wouldn't really be anywhere near the hellish warzone that the Land of Grass was developing into, or the mess that was the Land of Rain, but it would probably be best for everyone to get us out of the village to work off the excess energy.

That said, it wasn't like the time we spent in the village was wasted. We took and completed dozens of D-ranks, including the dreaded pet retrieval missions. Tora hadn't been born yet, I think, so at least we didn't have to deal with him.

I went to Hayate's Academy entrance ceremony, and I managed not to die of a panic-induced heart attack from sheer nerves. Going by who I'd seen in the crowd, it looked like Hayate was going to be in Iruka and Mizuki's graduating class. I didn't really see anyone else I recognized, but I also understood that it'd been forever since I'd seen half the "major players" in the plot and quite possibly wouldn't recognize them at age five anyway. Since Hayate had elected to start a year late, he was one of the older kids in his year as opposed to the youngest, which really didn't mean all that much. It made me feel better, though.

Aside from that, I was also able to start contributing to the family funds with all of those D-ranked missions. Sure, the pay wasn't all that great and I was about two years from being able to afford my own shinobi-grade katana, but it at least took care of the question of my pocket money and took some of the burden off of Mom.

Speaking of which, I'd totally missed the fact that Konoha did, in fact, have a Widows and Orphans Fund. We didn't quite seem to qualify, since Mom was a ninja too and the damn program had apparently been designed with civilian wives and children in mind, but we got _something_ and it was enough to at least pay for food and basic necessities, while my extra pay and Mom's savings took care of the more esoteric stuff. I'd never realized how much money went into paying for all the mission equipment I'd need for a real trip.

For reference, five thousand ryō was about the maximum anyone ever paid for a D-ranked mission, and even then it was split between Sensei, Kakashi, Obito and me. S-ranked missions, on the other hand, went for millions of ryō, depending on the specifics. Basically, the difference was generally in the number of zeroes tacked on the end, even aside from the fact that even inexperienced ninjas could generally be expected not to die on D-ranked missions and the fact that S-ranked ones tended to be handed off to jōnin and ANBU.

The fact that both Team Minato (then composed of two jōnin and two chūnin) and the Sasuke Retrieval Squad (with a new chūnin and four genin) would be sent on A-ranked missions anyway did not exactly inspire confidence in the system, though.

Aside from the dread, though, I was actually feeling okay on the day we went in to get our first C-ranked mission. Even if we hadn't been frustrated, I thought that Team Minato was capable of taking a C-ranked mission and not dying. Obito and I had been working for two months on nothing but coordination, even if we were mostly gaining ground individually. No matter what Sensei tried, he couldn't quite get us to click as a duo, and we'd almost been killed by each other's techniques once or twice.

Team Awesomeness (sans Rin) was still a work in progress, but at least we'd refined what we actually had. Obito had figured out the Grand Fireball and was working on the Phoenix Sage Fire jutsu. We'd burned through a month's supply of straw dummies with that one and my Sensei-sanctioned exploding tags. I'd probably used up my allowance on that count, though.

As for me, I'd managed to get chakra scalpels down well enough that I didn't need seals to form them. The ones I made without hand seals could only cut through things the way an axe did, though. Because they weren't precisely solid, since the chakra cost of _that _would have been enormous, the damage could only be seen if I was able to practice on cadavers and maybe sides of pork. They left the skin mostly intact, but the results on the insides of soft targets were…messy. They weren't so much chakra scalpels as chakra kitchen knives, but I could work with it as long as no one needed me to do any actual surgery.

When it came to Kakashi, it was hard to tell how much he made progress with. He rarely used anything but taijutsu in spars, even though I knew he had more to play with than just that. I was pretty sure he knew the Shadow Clone jutsu, though, if only because he had to learn it _sometime_ and I knew he had it down by the time he turned thirteen. I knew his chakra capacity was expanding, like Obito's and mine, but at a slightly slower pace. Then again, I seemed to remember something about how his stamina would never be more than average.

But hey, we'd been a team for about two and a half months and we were all still alive. Go us.

When we arrived in the mission office, the atmosphere was subtly different, even though Sensei still greeted the Hokage with a mild, "Team Minato, reporting for duty."

We braced for disappointment.

The Hokage puffed on his pipe once or twice, exhaling a cloud of thick white-gray smoke. I narrowed my eyes a little—growing up with a smoker dad in one lifetime and a brother with what seemed to be asthma on steroids in another, I wasn't exactly approving of the habit. I didn't say anything about it, though, since it was the Hokage.

"Hm. Today, we have a few C-ranked missions available," the Hokage said around his pipe. "Minato-kun, do you believe your team is ready for one?"

My heartbeat quickened. Really? A _C-ranked_ mission?

Granted, the only C-ranked mission I'd ever seen in my visions had promptly gone A-rank, but I could at least hope for the best, right?

"I do, Hokage-sama." Minato-sensei replied seriously.

C-ranked missions could pay up to a hundred thousand ryō. This was balanced by the fact that they were a _lot_ more likely to kill the shinobi involved than D-ranked ones. They were usually assigned to chūnin teams, or possibly jōnin-led genin teams if the mission risk was judged to be lower than normal. The Wave Mission undertaken by Team Kakashi was one example.

Before the missing-nin had gotten involved, anyway.

"Very well. At the moment…" He paused, looking through the scrolls for an appropriate task. "At the moment, we have three C-rank missions that are within your team's capabilities. However, I believe it would be best if we kept it within the Land of Fire for now. It is your first, after all."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Kakashi, Obito, and I said as one. Then we blinked and looked at each other, because that was kind of creepy.

Sensei snorted with laughter, hiding his mouth behind a hand. When we all turned to glare up at him, also at once, he moved on with a quick, "What are the mission parameters, Hokage-sama?"

"This particular mission is dependent on your ability to locate a band of merchants within the Land of Fire." The Hokage unrolled it.

I looked up at the ceiling, thinking. In cheerful orange hiragana, someone had made a poster that said, "Do your best, everyone!" There was also a large black character for "shinobi" painted on the ceiling. It was like shorthand for the contradiction of our lives—we could be civilians living in peaceful ignorance, or we could be shinobi whose lives would have actual impact on the world, and probably die in the process.

Can I just say how utterly disturbing that was?

"Chinatsugumi is the name of a merchant caravan that operates within the borders of the Land of Fire. While not tied to any city, her merchants nonetheless provide the village with supplies in wartime and have for two generations." The Hokage swept his gaze across all of our faces, to make sure we were paying attention. "With Kumogakure and Iwagakure increasing their aggression toward our borders, the lieutenant of the caravan's operations and head of security has asked that we provide an escort between their home base of Mount Soragami and our village." He flipped the scroll shut with a flick of his wrist and Minato retrieved it from its place on the desk. "The estimated length of the mission is three weeks if all goes well, and the most likely opponents will be bandits driven out of their usual hiding-places."

"Not enemy ninjas?" I blurted.

"No, Keisuke-kun," the Hokage said with a grandfatherly smile. "Mount Soragami is well within the borders of the Land of Fire." He paused. "But don't take the risk of bandits lightly. As your first C-ranked mission, you'll be learning as you go."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." I said, bowing.

On one hand, C-ranked mission! On the other, oh fuck, _a C-ranked mission_.

"How large is the caravan this year?" Sensei asked.

"There are approximately thirty members willing to venture outside of their stronghold at the moment," the Hokage said. "Though admittedly the numbers may be skewed one way or another and may differ when you arrive."

Sensei sighed. "All right then. Kids, we're meeting on the roof in five. Go."

And we left.

"I don't think I've ever heard of the Chinatsugumi." I admitted, sitting on the concrete. The name wasn't ringing any bells, and the Dreamer wasn't coming up with anything either.

"Neither have I." Obito said, frowning.

Kakashi sighed. "The leader's name's actually just Chinatsu. The locals around Mount Soragami just decided to call the caravan that because she's the whole reason they exist. Mount Soragami has a bunch of small towns around it that depend on the money she gets from places like Konoha and Kusagakure, mostly by trading luxury items and food." He assumed a pose I could only describe as "lecturer mode." "I've taken two missions with Sensei as a bodyguard for that caravan, though we didn't really end up doing much either time. She sticks to allied villages for the most part, so all we really ended up running into were two-bit bandits and maybe the occasional larger bandit group, since Chinatsu-san travels with up to forty other people, half of whom are normal security forces, and only needed ninja to fill a couple of reconnaissance gaps." He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "It's not really a high-risk mission, so you should be able to cut your teeth on it without losing any."

Before Obito could decide whether or not to punch Kakashi in the face, Sensei popped back into existence in front of us in a burst of displaced air.

"Sensei?" Kakashi asked.

"It's like before, Kakashi." Sensei confirmed, which told me precisely fuck-all. Kakashi may have been a condescending jerk, but at least he explained things. Sensei clapped his hands, apparently to get Obito's and my attention. "All right! This is going to be your first C-rank mission. Despite what the Hokage said, Chinatsu-san is generally pretty patient with new shinobi and doesn't actually _need_ genin most of the time. We do, however, have an agreement with her that says as long as we send a sufficiently experienced ninja along, we can all share defensive duty. That might not mean much to you right now, but it's easier on all of us and it's a gentler introduction to the shinobi world than most of us get."

I think it was Sensei's way of being protective of us, even if we were already pretty dangerous. Solely because Obito and I could use chakra and had a couple of jutsu to play with, we could already take on non-ninja fighters with relative ease.

In theory, anyway. Neither of us had ever been in really serious fights and personally, I completely expected to freeze and need someone to save my sorry ass.

"Anyway, you have the rest of today to rest, pack, and polish up your skills. We'll be using the entire mission after we leave Konoha tomorrow as a training exercise, so we won't be having our usual morning training. Everyone clear?"

"Yes, Sensei!" we chorused.

Minato-sensei smiled. "Good. In that case, you're dismissed!"

Then Sensei and Kakashi were both gone.

"Well, that was abrupt." I commented. I looked over at Obito. "So, want to get any last-minute training in?"

Obito grinned, now that Sensei and Kakashi were gone and we could hang out together. "Sure."

That night, after training was finished, my bags were packed, and I finally collapsed in bed, I pillowed my head in my folded arms and wondered about the future.

I didn't ever really _not_ wonder about the future, mainly because my odds of survival seemed to be dependent on how much I could predict and counteract with as much precision as possible. But when my future knowledge wasn't giving me any hints, I didn't really have a lot of go on other than my own fear.

I didn't know what Team Minato's first C-rank had been in my visions, mainly because it had never been shown. I'd only ever seen two missions, both of which had ended in disaster, and a brief flash of two attempts at being promoted to chūnin. Come to that, I didn't know all that much about Team Minato's first incarnation, either.

Hell, I didn't have _anything_ in the Dreamer's vision archive about Hayate's life other than the way he died and the fact that he'd been in a relationship with Yūgao Uzuki. I hadn't had any idea who our parents were, or their fate, or how Hayate had developed his signature cough. And yet, that hadn't really _bothered_ me since I always thought of the visions as _events_.

Discrete events could be directly countered. The details could be fudged. Maybe a lucky stroke would keep Archduke Ferdinand from being assassinated—that was the purview of speculative fiction writers. Maybe my existence had shaken up the status quo something fierce, at least for my family and friends. I'd never know for _sure_.

And yet, World War One would have still happened even the Archduke's driver hadn't made that one turn, because Europe had been a clusterfuck of alliances and intermarriages and _utter stupid _that had started long beforehand. The tensions weren't any less real just because someone was or wasn't getting their head ventilated. And twenty years later, there would have been a second World War solely because of how the "great powers" had handled the last one.

Ferdinand Foch once said, "_This is not a peace_. _It is an armistice for twenty years_."

I stared at the face of my alarm clock and the Dreamer said quietly, **Can we turn history aside?**

I didn't know.

I didn't know if having me around would make it possible for Obito to stay safe and sane. I didn't know if Rin would survive the war, even if she wasn't on Team Minato. I didn't know if Madara would be able to find a way to start the Fourth Shinobi World War despite anything I did. I didn't know if any of the changes I'd made—by existing, or through my actions—would kill people I cared about. There was just so much I couldn't pin down for sure.

I did know one thing for sure, though: Even if I was so scared I could hardly breathe, I would _try_. And I'd keep trying, until there wasn't anything left to try for.

* * *

**A/N:** At this point, I am sad to say, I will probably need to slow my updating speed in the very near future to once per two or three days. I am almost entirely out of additional pre-written chapters, and between finishing their C-rank arc, meeting more people, their first attempt at getting promoted, and other events, I still have a lot more to elaborate on before I can feel comfortable posting things every day. If I did so, the quality (such as it is) would take a dive. This next part's gonna require some planning, so when I disappear for a while, you'll know why.

Also, yes, I have most of this story planned out. Devil's in the details, though.


	21. The Dreaded C-Rank: Mount Soragami!

The next day seemed to dawn bright and early, which put me in a somewhat crabby mood before I even left the house. Though Hayate seemed excited for me, Mom was undoubtedly worried, and she'd given me a sword-cleaning kit to make absolutely sure I was prepared for the next month or so of living on the road. I didn't know if I'd even end up using my kodachi at all, since Sensei seemed to have mastered the trick of being nearly everywhere at once and Kakashi was combat-tested, but I appreciated the gesture and tucked it into my jacket pocket anyway.

"My little girl is growing up so fast." Mom said quietly, hugging me.

"Not so fast. I'll miss both of you." I said, and as soon as Mom let me go I was hugging Hayate so hard he almost squeaked. "Be good for Mom and your teachers at school, okay?"

"You know I will, Sis." Hayate said, muffled by my jacket, but I got the message. _I love you, I'll miss you, come back safe_.

"I'll be back before you know it." Not because I actually would, but people said that kind of thing before heading out on long journeys, so it felt right.

I waved a final good-bye to my family before scurrying off to make sure Obito wasn't late.

"Obito!" I called, having taken the long way around the district so I could hop on people's roofs without getting a citation for it. I made pretty good time, and I found Obito on one of the main thoroughfares to the market district, heading back toward his house.

Obito looked up. "Bit busy, Kei!" he called back, and I blinked.

While usually he waited until the afternoon to run around helping people, I guess this was the morning when all of the older people in the district decided to do their shopping. Obito was carrying the older Uchiha's bags for her, with two plastic bags with vegetables and tofu and fish on each arm. He had all of his mission equipment with him in a backpack that was bulging with its contents, but that wasn't really the important bit. I hadn't seen him with Old Lady Sayako while, it didn't really change the fact that we had about half an hour to meet up at the gates and depart for distant lands.

Well, Mount Soragami was still within the borders of the Land of Fire and we probably wouldn't be exactly charting new lands, but it was still something!

I thought about Kakashi's reaction, and Sensei's. Then I thought about how much time Obito spent just getting to know the people he lived with, and helping them with their problems as best he could.

I hopped down from the roof, backpack straps cinched across my chest and waist, and said, "Need a hand?"

Obito promptly dumped one arm's worth of bags in my arms and said, "Yep."

We ended up being about ten minutes late, which was pretty good time for the situation. We both got candy from Sayako Uchiha, who seemed to be very pleasant for a retired kunoichi with a bad leg, but that didn't really mean much when Kakashi was waiting at the gates to make disappointed eyebrows at us.

Actually, I decided I didn't care about _that_ as much as I did when Sensei looked askance at us. Nevertheless, I just offered a shrug and commenced trying to figure out how to unwrap a piece of sweet rice candy using just my teeth and tongue. It was like trying it with Starburst, only the rice paper wrapping was edible too.

Om nom nom.

"Sorry about being late, Sensei, but there was an old lady who needed help with her bags, and Kei and I stopped to help because she'd bought too much food." Obito said blithely, grinning.

Sensei just sighed. Maybe if I hadn't talked to him in the hospital waiting room, there would have been a lecture waiting. But the journey to Mount Soragami was three days long at even shinobi speed according to a topography map Mom had found for me, and ten minutes meant nothing in the face of it.

"The mountain isn't getting any closer." Kakashi said bluntly.

I threw a piece of candy at him.

Sensei caught it. Turned out Sensei had a bit of a sweet tooth too.

"All right, since we're all here, let's head out." Sensei said around his allotment of candy. Kakashi was giving Sensei a weird look, like he couldn't quite believe that his teacher was giving us any slack at all, and I poked him in the shoulder as I walked past.

He almost instantly poked me back.

"Kids, don't make me have to turn this squad around before we even get out of the gates."

Obito snickered, and then I poked him. He squawked. "Hey!"

"Someday I will draw everyone into my web of tag games _and you will all rue the day you met me_." I said dramatically.

Obito giggled and threw an arm around my shoulders. "So, what's the policy on tag-backs?"

I grinned. "You'll see."

And then we were off.

"You know," Obito said about five minutes later. "This is the first time I've ever been outside the village. What about you, Kei?"

"Same here." I said. "There isn't really a lot you have to head out of the village to do, unless you're on the active duty roster."

Then again, Konoha is huge. It's like asking someone from the greater Manhattan area if they _need_ to leave for anything.

We were moving in an easily-defensible diamond pattern, with Kakashi on point while Obito and I made up the somewhat more vulnerable middle, and Sensei brought up the rear. Granted, we were also moving at a speed of about twenty kilometers per hour, both because the shinobi scale of what made an appropriate overland speed was somewhat advanced compared to that of untrained civilians and because we tended to travel by trees around Konoha itself. At least until the Hashirama trees ran out, anyway—most of the more common pines, oaks, and maples were more difficult to maneuver through. The trees that had, in a way, named our home village were really more like buildings than anything—traveling through them was less like forest exploration and more like an extended lesson in entirely pre-industrialized _parkour_.

I was still keeping an eye out for basic obstacles and possible trap-setting points, though. There were a lot of ways to horribly maim or kill someone moving at twenty to thirty kilometers per hour even without anyone inventing cars. Most of them, here, involved razor wire. And maybe explosive tags.

Sure, there was no reason there would _be_ any this far out of the village's range of defenses—I think we used seals for this particular area—and this far from the front lines, but I always expected trouble anyway.

Still, the rest of that day passed mostly without any incidents. Sure, Obito tripped and face-planted when we were getting close to our stopping point for the day, but he was fine and only took a little patching up on my part. We dug out the privy-pit, started a fire (with some happy assistance from Obito's miniaturized Grand Fireball), and cleared the campsite of branches of rocks as Kakashi hunted for our dinner and Sensei set up a perimeter seal to make sure no one would trip over us at night.

"For tonight," Sensei said, "Kei-kun has first watch. Kakashi, you have middle watch. Obito, dawn watch. I'll be nearby in case something happens or you have questions, but this is really about getting into the habit of always having someone looking out for you."

I gave Sensei a somewhat skeptical look, even though everything he said made perfect sense.

"And if you wake me up for no reason I'm tying you up in an ankle snare for an hour." Sensei informed us.

Obito gulped.

I considered that warning. "Okay, but if we all die it's your fault."

Sensei ruffled my hair as soon as I took my hitai-ate off to sleep. I had the weirdest feeling he'd been waiting for it, because it was more a noogie than anything. He didn't stop until I screamed, "I give, I give!" while laughing madly.

And then, since Obito had seemed like he was feeling left out, Sensei grabbed him too and did the same thing. He caught Kakashi by the ankle and managed to repeat the feat, even though he only had two arms and I hadn't even moved because I was laughing too hard.

He might have been our teacher, but he was also pretty much an evil older brother.

The next day almost wasn't even worth mentioning. We'd left the great Hashirama trees far behind, and the next major obstacle was basically hills. I think they might have technically been foothills, even if the mountains they actually represented were pretty far away and probably also volcanoes.

Actually, even from this far away, Mount Soragami—once it had been pointed out to me, anyway—reminded me of Mount St. Helens. In some ways, it was also a bit like Mt. Kilimanjaro in that there were no other comparable mountains nearby and the top was ringed with clouds in a normally-clear sky, but the western face had apparently been blown out sometime in the past by a massive eruption. It had snow on it, so at least it hadn't been recent.

Hey, Land of Fire. Gotta take what you can get, I guess.

Personally, I suspected that there might have been some kind of hotspot under the continental plate, sort of like the one under Hawaii in my old life, since I wasn't aware of any other volcanoes in the area. Granted, that could just be ignorance, because I was pretty sure that almost all of Japan, Hawaii, the Aleutians, and most of the rest of the Pacific Rim had been volcanically active one way or another. It was the Ring of Fire, after all.

I wondered again just how big the Land of Fire actually _was_, because I was pretty sure that even Mt. Fuji had been further inland. Sort of In some ways, a whole lot of Japanese people had more or less been living _on_ it. Or at least the lava plain if it blew its top off, I guess.

Then again, given the magical physics-pretzel-making bullshit inherent to this universe, I had to wonder if Soragami was an _artificial _mountain. It was still in the classical cone shape of a stratovolcano, with considerations made for the fact that the western face was probably in a hundred trillion pieces and fertilizer for the foothills. I wondered what kind of jutsu could even begin to tap into the power in the world's crust, and then I stopped.

If Madara could knock a fucking _asteroid_ out of the sky to flatten the Shinobi Alliance, and the Sax of Six Paths had created the fucking _moon_, I guess the sky really wasn't even a limit anymore.

Then again, since those things were mostly already _there_, I think it was more a matter of bringing stuff upward to play with. That said, creating a new volcano was nothing to sneeze at, even for the famed Lava Release users of Iwagakure, and it would probably involve the deaths of absolutely everyone in the area just because volcanoes brought so much _else_ to the surface besides lava. Poisonous gases, for a start, and some of those could actually catch fire once released into an oxygen-rich environment. I didn't really give a crap if Mei Terumī of Kirigakure had Lava and Steam Release techniques, or if Mū and Ōnoki had Particle Release down pat—a volcano wasn't something anyone could _fight._

Redirect, yes. Fight? Fucking hell no.

Wait.

Because shinobi are out of their minds as a rule, _someone_ must have tried to do something with it.

"Sensei, how long has it been since Soragami erupted?" I asked.

"Going by the records the Chinatsugumi have for us, longer than there have been shinobi." Sensei replied.

He glanced at me as we walked, since the foothills were a mite too dangerous to be using our shinobi speed without an experienced Hyūga on point. We could easily land on top of a battlefield or a bandit stronghold if we didn't pay attention.

So, at least a couple hundred years. It didn't really make me feel any better, since shinobi records were hilariously spotty because of the Clan Wars era. Still, _someone_ would have noticed a volcano blowing up, so maybe it wasn't down to overambitious idiots anymore.

I made a noise like "hm" and said, "I wonder how precise their analysis of the surface strata is."

"What?" Obito said blankly.

"Basically, every eruption throughout history leaves a deposit of ash and other volcanic material on the area around the cone." I explained, frowning. "I don't know the specifics, but if you dug down far enough, you could probably find evidence that the dirt we're standing on was once covered in ash from whenever the nearest volcano exploded. The ash layer doesn't go away, so you can see basically everything about the geological history if you know what you're looking for and how fast soil layers accumulate on top."

Kakashi and Sensei were blinking at me.

I grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. I know it's not really relevant to being a ninja, but it's interesting!"

It was my fault for being into volcanology as a kid, I guess. Seriously. I'd been fascinated by everything that could have made my world collapse in ash and fire, for some reason. Norse myths were a favorite for a similar reason.

The interest wasn't as strong in my new life. I guess I had enough potentially fatal things to worry about the second time through to bother worrying about whether or not the local geology was going to decide to flatten us like ants under a flipped semi. That said, I still remembered.

**The lava dome doesn't seem to have built up again yet. It only took Mt. St. Helens thirty years to get back to full size, pyroclastic flow and all.** The Dreamer seemed to frown. **Save possibly Madara, Hashirama, and the Sage of Six Paths, there are literally ****_no_**** ninja in the history of this world that could play with a volcano and not get blasted to a fine grit. Sans perhaps Obito as the host of the Ten-Tailed Beast.**

**Of course, the Tailed Beast Ball makes the entire question rather academic anyway. Who needs a volcano when any hack with a Mangekyō Sharingan can just hijack a Tailed Beast and do the same thing with less collateral damage? Well, assuming no one needed that mountain range anyway.**

I was already contemplating the pros and cons of setting a volcano off in the resurrected Madara's face. I'd die a quick and fiery death, either at his hands or at the nonexistent mercy of a volcano, but the look on his face might be worth it if I could last long enough to see it.

I think Sensei was looking at me funny for the rest of the day, while Obito peppered me with questions and Kakashi pretended I didn't have the ability to talk at all.

Yeah. Day two was kind of boring.

We did get into what amounted to an extremely vicious three-way game of exploding Tag—literally Tag with explosive notes and Replacement jutsu—in the clearing closest to our campsite. We stopped pretty quickly after Sensei caught us, though.

Anyway, there was always the third day to look forward to.

Speaking of which, the third day was the one where we finally reached the Chinatsugumi compound, about two hours before dusk.

It wasn't…subtle. Not really. The city the Chinatsugumi used as their base was more of a fortress built on top of one of Soragami's daughter peaks, with several tiered walls and buildings squished into the interim space. A giant pair of characters emblazoned across the front gates read "Sorayama-no-Sato," or the Village of the Sky Mountain. The flag of the merchant house—or maybe it was a lot more than a merchant house, given the city-state they apparently occupied—was streaming in the mountain wind from the top of the largest, highest building. It was also written across most of the smaller ones.

At least they didn't call the damn thing a _hidden_ village, because it certainly wasn't that.

Minato talked to one of the gate guards, both of whom were dressed like proper non-ninja soldiers and therefore could be easily bypassed the moment any of us felt like it. The guard he was speaking to, with a mustache like a pencil line and a beard to match, gesturing vaguely with his spear, and Sensei beckoned to us.

We trooped up to him in a neat little triangle. I was in the back this time, because apparently the total lack of hostile attention from anything bigger than a mosquito meant that I could at least be trusted with that much.

Speaking of which, I needed to remember to look up malaria and West Nile equivalents sometime soon.

"All right, we're going to be meeting Chinatsu-san in the longhouse up top. The guards just gave us permission to take the shortcut over the roofs, so we'll be heading in now." Sensei told us. "Follow my lead."

"That's it?" Obito asked. "I thought there'd be a security checkpoint or something…"

Sensei shrugged. Then again, he had been here more often than Obito or I had just because he actually _had been here before_, so it was going to be in our best interests to follow his lead. "For now, we're home free. Just keep in mind that we're on _their_ territory now, and try not to leave any ration bar wrappers where they shouldn't be."

Obito and I nodded anyway. We followed Sensei and Kakashi's subsequent leaps, though perhaps not quite so high or as easily.

Once at the longhouse—which really looked more like a castle that had decided to sit on top of a slightly larger castle and not a longhouse at all—we were escorted into the inner sanctum of the building. The buildings were wood and concrete with steel struts for support, with high, angled ceilings and interwoven four-by-fours providing the structural integrity of the roof. The main room was long, though that may have been as much a visual effect of the long green rug running the length of it as the real dimensions. Most of the guards seemed to be, while not exactly shinobi-caliber, at least experienced and confident even in Sensei's presence.

Then again, he was a seventeen-year-old blond with a pretty face, no visible scars, a mild-mannered attitude to people he didn't know, and a winning smile. The rest of us were nine and, by definition, not very impressive. Even if I carried my kodachi openly on my waist.

At the very end of the room, surrounded by a desk covered in paperwork and two rather harried assistants, was the person I assumed was the eponymous Chinatsu of the Chinatsugumi. Aside from the fact that she wasn't wearing any kind of headgear—such as the Hokage's hat or an elaborate hairpiece typical of a noble lady—she looked every bit the merchant queen. Her clothes weren't overly elaborate, though they were very well-made, and her sleeves had been tied up so that she could work on the onslaught of forms without getting ink into the silk.

I tried to catch a glimpse of her face as we approached, even if it was mostly pointing away from us and at the desk-top. Her hair was lighter than Sensei's, with the majority tied up in a businesslike knot on the back of her head and a fringe and two long side-locks framing her face. She didn't seem to get out much, at least compared to Obito and Sensei, and was paler than both. She had calluses and burns on her manicured hands, though I couldn't imagine where they'd come from.

She looked up once we got within about ten feet, and I blinked.

Her eyes were pale gold.

There were maybe three people I could name off the top of my head with gold eyes in all of my visions. Orochimaru had been one of them, but his had visible serpent pupils. It didn't seem to be a dominant trait anywhere, really. This woman, however, made me think of a bird of prey. I had the strangest feeling that she was looking right through us, even though she couldn't have been older than twenty-five and she didn't seem to be a shinobi.

Also, I had the strongest feeling of déjà vu and I had no idea why.

"Misaki-dono, the team from Konohagakure has arrived," said the aide on the left. I honestly couldn't tell if either of the aides was a guy or a girl, and that meant something coming from me.

"So I see," she replied, gathering up the papers in front of her and setting them aside. She looked back up at us. "You may approach."

Sensei led the way, again.

"Team Minato, at your service," he said, bowing.

Misaki nodded, shooing her aides out of the room with a dismissive flick of her wrist. "Hello again, Namikaze-san. It's been a while since your last visit, hasn't it?"

"Well, six months pass by quickly." Minato admitted. "We've been a bit busy lately. So, how have the other teams been?"

"Decent, though not spectacular in any respect," she replied, turning her gaze on each of us kids in turn. "Hello to you as well, Kakashi-kun. I see you have new teammates."

Kakashi nodded.

Misaki looked from him to Obito and I.

"Oh! I'm Obito Uchiha, Misaki-dono!" Obito said, smiling brightly.

"Keisuke Gekkō." I said a moment later, noticing how her eyes seemed to linger on me. "Um, I'm a kunoichi." I added belatedly.

Misaki frowned. "Yes, I am aware of that. Is this a common misunderstanding where you are from?"

"Kinda." I admitted.

"Hm. Well, no matter. My sister will be here in a moment to show you where you can stay for the night." Misaki says, and retrieves a sheet of paper from her desk. "This is a copy of the contract for Konohagakure's bi-annual business agreement with Sorayama as well as the Chinatsugumi. Due to recent considerations and increasing hostility from the forces of Kumogakure and Iwagakure, some aspects may need to be revised. Have you been empowered by Hokage-dono to accept or suggest revisions?"

Sensei's eyebrows knit together. "Not as such. I was told only that we'd be working on the assigned C-ranked mission, but if you have a messenger hawk I can use…"

"Of course, Namikaze-san." Misaki clapped twice and another aide, apparently interchangeable with the other two, appeared. "Fetch a messenger hawk for our shinobi guests, would you?"

"Yes, Misaki-sama." And then the aide was gone. I suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that the aides were ninjas, even if no one else was.

That was about when the door at the far end of the room, the same one that we'd arrived through, opened again. Outlined briefly in the evening glow of the city, the figure strode into the room with long, self-assured strides and arrived at the desk in what seemed like no time at all.

My brain took a minute to work out a few things. One, the person in front of us was female and taller than Sensei by a good four centimeters. Two, she was wearing road clothes—meaning a practical, sturdy set of shoes, plain dark pants under a cotton skirt and wrap, and her hair tied back into one of the longest braids I'd ever seen. Three, her face was _exactly_ the same as Misaki's, sans makeup.

She also seemed extremely familiar for some other reason, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out why.

And she was looking right at us. "So, you're the most recent team to take the mission?"

"They are, sister dearest." Misaki said, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. Was it just me, or did she sound just the slightest bit mocking.

Misaki's twin looked at us again after the briefest frown. Then she shrugged. "You'll do just fine."

"I'm glad we meet your approval, Chinatsu-dono." Sensei said mildly.

"I'm sure my approval doesn't matter as much as you seem to think." Chinatsu said, turning. "Anyway, come along and I'll show you where you'll be staying tonight. We'll get that hawk for you in a moment."

We followed her out, but all the while my head was spinning. I'd already confirmed that neither the Dreamer nor I had any idea of what was supposed to happen on this mission. We knew so little about Team Minato's earlier exploits that everything would be a mystery at this stage. And for all I knew, my sense of familiarity was just because I'd seen a filler episode with this caravan. I probably wouldn't remember that clearly, right?

After a while, though, I started to notice something else that set me a bit on edge.

Normally, I could sense civilian chakra signatures. I usually didn't bother because, well, civilians didn't generally have enough chakra to actually stand out all that much. It was a lot easier and more important to be able to sense anyone who trained their chakra, since that was the kind of thing that usually meant a threat or an ally were around, depending on intent. Either way, I could determine how to act on it.

But in the office with Misaki, Chinatsu, and the interchangeable aides, I'd only felt three chakra signatures at all. All of them had belonged to the aides. It was like Misaki and Chinatsu were ghosts, their chakra blending completely into the background buzz of natural energy.

I felt cold.

Either those two really were ghosts, or they had kage-level suppression skills. I didn't really know which was worse.


	22. Kumbayah

It was kind of nice to get a chance to stay in a hotel. I mean, I'd been in roadside hotels and motels in my old life, but I'd never been traveling as Keisuke Gekkō before. I'd also never liked camping in my old life either, which meant that sleeping under the stars was kind of annoying. It was all in how much time I had to spend picking rocks out of my things after. I was used to my own bed, even if the mattress was starting to dip a little in the middle and some of the sheets were thinning out due to age.

I'd also never stayed anywhere with a traditional onsen. Swimming pools and hot tubs, yes, and even a hot spring pool once upon a time, but there was something special about being able to walk outside and realize that nature was providing all the hot water anyone would ever need. It was nice.

Of course, the springs weren't for both sexes and the sides were separated by three-meter walls, but it wasn't really a big deal to take a bath without my teammates around. Actually, from the ruckus coming from the other side of the wall, Obito had probably discovered that Kakashi bathed with a mask on and engaged in a water fight when he couldn't wheedle Kakashi into taking it off. Sensei's laughter made it obvious, even though the boys were loudly trying to drown each other.

Yeah, I was glad I wasn't over there, even if I was curious about what his face looked like under it. I leaned against the rocks, enjoying the cooler night air and the way the steam from the water made everything seem kind of mystical. I closed my eyes, content.

Sure, tomorrow I'd probably be busy hating everything in existence because caravans were _slow_, but I could enjoy this moment.

And of course, the day started bright and early again the next morning. It was becoming extremely clear that the world was full of morning people. Evil, evil morning people who were completely willing to _literally_ kick me out of bed if I didn't get up on time. And then pester me for a goddamn hour to get ready, down to outlining the steps for getting dressed, getting breakfast, brushing my teeth, and putting my damn sandals on. And then jab me with a tantō when I took a swing at them.

As a side note, I made a silent pledge that the first sufficiently large bug or amphibian I found was going down Kakashi's pants.

Anyway, I really ended up spending most of the morning watching the caravan get ready from a nearby rooftop. Since they took up almost the entirety of the main road out of town, it wasn't exactly hard to find them, and it did make an interesting version of a traffic jam, in a world without internal combustion engines. Obito sat next to me, a lollipop between his teeth, and occasionally pointed out something interesting or someone falling down.

"Oh, there's Chinatsu-san." Obito said after a while, pointing at the blonde as she emerged from the longhouse.

While not dressed all that differently from any of the other merchants, she was still visually distinctive simply by virtue of being taller than nearly everyone while having boobs. I hadn't met Jiraiya yet because he, along with Orochimaru, seemed to be spending a lot of his time on the front lines, but I assumed that he'd be taller. Probably.

"Is it just me or is she looking right at us?" I asked, staring back. Of course, I didn't exactly have the Byakugan or anything, but it still seemed like Chinatsu was looking me in the eye even from forty meters off.

Obito squinted, then said, "…It's not just you. Man, that's creepy."

She waved before turning to talk to someone with an apparently bandaged head.

"Less creepy." Obito said.

"I'll take your word on that." I said, and cast my chakra sense out in search of Kakashi and Sensei. Sensei, it seemed, was still inside of the longhouse. Kakashi was in the crowd somewhere, though I couldn't get a fix on his position because someone else with lightning chakra kept running around and disrupting things. It didn't quite feel like Kakashi's loose wire impression—actually, I imagined that it would have been like the results of walking on a carpet with thick socks.

_Bzzzt_.

Then again, Kakashi was also heading our way, and had finally left the crowd behind to travel on the roofs.

"What are you two doing?" Kakashi demanded once he landed next to us. Neither of us jumped—we were getting annoyingly used to his drill sergeant routine. That, and Kakashi wasn't quite as good at appearing out of nowhere as Sensei was, since I could always sense Kakashi when he was nearby and Sensei's Flying Thunder God range was just slightly insane.

"Observing." I said.

"Providing color commentary." Obito added.

Kakashi made a complicated expression at us that was only complicated because neither Obito nor I could see half of his face.

"Sit down and pull up a roofing tile." I suggested. "From the looks of things, we're not going anywhere for a while."

"You know you want to!" Obito chimed in, grinning.

"You two are a pair of disgraces." Kakashi said flatly. He ended up sitting further up the roof, almost on the apex of the structure, and glaring down at the backs of our heads.

"I think we keep scaring him off because he doesn't want to be overshadowed by our awesomeness." Obito told me in a stage whisper.

"I think he's just a stick in the mud." I said.

"Well, he's that too." Obito agreed.

Kakashi grumbled.

Sensei's chakra finally left the building and reappeared right next to Kakashi. "So, is everyone ready to go?" he asked.

I held up my pack, which hadn't been used all that much in the past few days. I hadn't even taken my spare weapons out. Obito grinned and said, "Whenever you are, Sensei!"

"Good. I was just speaking to Misaki-dono, and our treaty with the Chinatsugumi and Sorayama has been revised." I saw Kakashi sit up as Sensei spoke. Minato-sensei went on, "This means that the Chinatsugumi will be dealing exclusively with Konoha and our allies, even after the end of the war. The hawks went out earlier this morning, so we might be seeing some hostile attention from any Rock or Cloud forces that have made it into the Land of Fire undetected, even if they might have ignored us before. As a result, the mission's classified as a B-rank the minute we run into trouble. Do you understand?"

I thought I did. "So, does that mean that we're going to be working on the security procedures with Chinatsu-san's guards?"

"Actually, no." Sensei replied. I blinked, and Obito and Kakashi looked surprised as well. "Not more than we already were. Leave that to me and Chinatsu-san to figure out—this is jōnin business."

"But they're not shinobi!" Obito said, apparently torn between concern and feeling insulted.

Sensei replied, "They may not be, but there are some things that aren't our business to interfere in until someone asks. It's a courtesy thing, for now."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "Are we going into this situation blind?"

"We're not blind, Kakashi. We actually know quite a bit." By which, apparently, Sensei meant that _he_ knew quite a bit and his students got to feel stupid for a while. "I'll explain more once we're on the road."

Sensei was met with the full force of our combined judgmental stares.

"We'll be fine," he said.

Given Team Minato's future track record, I was inclined to increase the intensity of my glare.

Sensei responded to all of this hostility by booting us off the roof in rapid succession. By the time we'd gotten all sorted out from _that_, it was time to hit the road.

This time around, we weren't allowed to take the overland route to Konoha. The same things that made it a decent and generally safe pathway for shinobi, moving through the trees or the forest floor at breakneck speeds as we did, made it borderline impassable to large groups of wheeled vehicles. Even if we'd had, say, a cattle train or something, it'd be easier to stick to open land and established roads, which sacrificed stealth and sometimes speed for security.

For our part, that meant the closest thing to a suitable road was the one that followed a river that flowed downward from Soragami and her daughter peaks.

"While it would be interesting to see you attempt to defend a caravan moving at one mile per two days, it's a pointless and ultimately frustrating idea." Chinatsu had said dryly to Obito when he complained within earshot. She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the lead wagon, which was about the size of a large pickup truck and pulled by oxen, and said, "That? That is _not_ going to get through a gap between trees no matter what we do. I know it's slow going—a single rider on horseback would make it to Konoha and back twice before we could, but we have cargo _and_ people to move."

Aside from that one rather pointed comment, however, Chinatsu-san mostly left us to our own devices. She was busy all the time, with various advisors and wagon-leads always popping over to ask for advice on the occasions that we stopped to rest or change the oxen, and eventually ended up handing control over to her second just so she could eat lunch in peace.

Speaking of which, Minato-sensei was in the lead for most of the first day and walking next to Chinatsu's wagon, to my mild surprise. I think he was trying to get a leg up on negotiations later by listening in then. Once again, Obito and I were on each side of the caravan, with me further toward the back of the train because there were twelve wagons to keep track of. Kakashi brought up the rear, hands in his pockets, and only had to walk a little to the left or right to keep track of everyone else.

The first day on the road passed without incident.

That night, we circled the wagons to make sure the oxen didn't wander off while unharnessed. Most of the wagons kept to themselves, with the particular merchant families sticking pretty close together even when we had a bonfire going in the middle of our camp. At most, they sent a representative to Chinatsu for something or other, but they always returned to their wagons in the end.

The occupants of the last wagon—a married couple, it seemed—and the biwa-playing man in the second wagon, along with the strawberry blond man who sat next to Chinatsu most of the time, all gathered around their leader regardless of what everyone else did.

"They're planning on setting up new shops within Konohagakure." Sensei said, when I asked about the social shut-ins. "Sorayama, despite being protected by Soragami's peaks and the fact that it's well within the Land of Fire, isn't quite the same as being protected by Konoha shinobi. I suppose that they think that Chinatsu may be disappointed in them somehow for making that choice."

"Why do they live out here in the first place?" Obito asked. I imagined, personally, that a volcano was the kind of place the ancient Uchiha clan might have been interested in.

"It has to do with the seals put in place around Mount Soragami." Sensei explained. Wait, what? Who the hell would put seals _on a volcano_? "It's said that only the seal masters of Uzushiogakure understood the processes involved, but honestly? It's a blood seal. If the last members of Chinatsu's clan die, then Soragami erupts."

_Well, fuck_, I thought.

"What clan is that, Sensei?" Kakashi asked.

Sensei shrugged. "I don't know. That said, I also know that if they want, they can set off one of the minor peaks at will to let off pressure. Most people aren't willing to risk that kind of reprisal and thus they're usually left alone."

_Double fuck_.

"If they can throw a volcano at someone who pisses them off, it's no wonder they're still there even with the war." I said, frowning thoughtfully. "I've heard that Iwagakure has Lava Release users, but there's a whole order of magnitude of a difference between a shinobi and the forces of nature."

"And that is exactly why we won't be seeing enemy shinobi for a while." Sensei said.

_That doesn't help much, if Misaki turns out not to care about a fuckton of collateral damage if she decides to go to avenge her sister._

**We'll just have to make that unnecessary, then.**

We ate dinner in relative peace, at least. I mean, Kakashi and Obito sat on top of a wagon together and didn't try to throw each other off, and Sensei and I sat with Chinatsu and her party of four followers. Friends, maybe? I didn't really ask, since I was a kid at the grown-up table and I'm not sure how they would have reacted to my weird comments. As it was, I caught Chinatsu staring at me almost every time I looked up. After a while, I scooted closer to Sensei and tried to forget about it. She stopped eventually, at least.

The feeling of déjà vu was still there. I'd _seen_ her before, but I didn't know where, and the feeling intensified the more the adults talked.

Sensei's hand landed on my head again. He was getting used to using me as an armrest, I think.

"Easy, Kei-kun." Sensei said quietly. "You're safe."

But everything still bothered me.

And I _still_ couldn't sense Chinatsu's chakra.

"Kei, what's got you so tense?" Obito asked once he made his way over.

"I don't know, and that's the problem." I told him, still frowning.

"Just like an idiot to get worked up over nothing." Kakashi muttered.

Sensei hooked his foot around Kakashi's ankle and dropped him on his butt. Everyone over the age of ten tried politely not to giggle while Kakashi sputtered like an angry cat.

"Rikuto, do you have any songs for us this time?" Chinatsu asked once everyone was done eating.

Rikuto, the man with the biwa, was about ten years older than Sensei. He was deeply tanned, which made me think he spent a lot of time on the road regardless of whatever the rest of the caravan got up to, and he had short black hair arranged into loose curls. He also had a goatee, which was a little bit overgrown, and pretty big sideburns. Aside from the fact that he was wearing the caravan "uniform" of sturdy clothes and road dust, he really seemed more like he'd be the kind of person who would be happier on the road alone.

He grinned, showing off a mouth incongruously full of fangs. "What have you got in mind, Chi-chan? A love ballad?"

The strawberry blond to Chinatsu's left started to choke on his tea.

Chinatsu slapped Rikuto upside the head before pounding on the other man's back. "Stop getting so worked up over things, Akira!"

"This feels really familiar for some reason." I said to Obito. "But I don't know why."

Obito shrugged. "I don't know about that. Seems a bit like us, doesn't it?"

As Chinatsu proceeded to attempt to choke Rikuto to death and Sensei kept snickering so much that I could feel him shake, I glanced over at the other two people at our gathering, who hadn't said anything.

The impression I got from them was unusual. I mean, I couldn't sense Chinatsu's chakra, or Misaki's, but I could sense something from just about everyone else I'd ever met. The couple I was talking about…one of them felt like ice, while the other felt like static. Neither of them were looking at me, but…

"Oh, and these two are Shirozora and Nanami," the just-identified and recovered Akira said, indicating the couple I was looking at. "For reference, Shirozora's on the left and Nanami is on the right."

Akira, for his part, was pretty nondescript. He had reddish-orange hair, with two braids running down the sides of his head, and a completely average build. He had gray-colored eyes, though they were downturned at the corners. Actually, aside from his hair color, he looked pretty much like any other perfectly ordinary man.

It set my teeth on edge for reasons I couldn't name.

The just-identified Shirozora shot Akira a dark look. "I can speak for myself, you know."

Nanami just sighed.

There was something oddly familiar about both of their faces.

Shirozora had white hair, which made me think that his parents weren't terribly original, and gray-blue eyes. I didn't see any pupils, but the Yamanaka clan didn't seem to have them either, so it wasn't worth worrying over. He had a build that reminded me a bit of Sensei, all long limbs and lean lines. I actually couldn't see part of his face if he turned toward me, because his bangs were longer on that side, and his hair actually went most of the way down his back in a ponytail. He was also, somehow, paler than even Misaki had been.

Nanami, by contrast, had extremely dark green hair and green eyes. She was all sun-bronzed and actually rather pretty, though she didn't seem inclined to talk much and hadn't actually done anything that I saw. She was probably shorter than, say, Mom, and her clothes were a trifle more feminine than anyone else's, since she actually had a skirt sans pants.

Speaking of pants, I was starting to get some idea of why Chinatsu didn't wear kimono like her sister. It made it hard to kick people in the face.

I was reminded of Obito and Kakashi all over again.

"It'd be nice if we didn't all fight all the time." I said under my breath, sighing.

Obito bumped his shoulder against mine. "We're fine."

Yeah, no. We still hadn't run into any trouble on this trip, Obito and I had only been shinobi for a couple of months, and our team cohesion was in the tank because we couldn't get any time to practice as a _unit._ We also spent most of a given day walking some ways apart, which meant that if Sensei couldn't keep an eye on us we'd be fighting four separate battles the minute we got attacked by something on the road.

**You need to stop taking such a negative viewpoint****_._**

I couldn't really help it.

"Chi-chan…" Akira started. He was doing a rather oddly indecisive dance as he tried to figure out how to get Chinatsu off of Rikuto without actually touching her and flailing around in indecision at the same time.

I think.

"What?" Chinatsu, for her part, was totally casual about having Rikuto in a chokehold.

"Um. You asked for music before, and…" Akira trailed off.

"Oh. Yeah, choking Rikuto to death is probably somewhat counterproductive, isn't it?" With that, Chinatsu dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

I don't think Sensei stopped laughing even for a moment.

After everyone had recovered, Rikuto finally started playing his biwa. Shirozora and Nanami produced a set of drums and a flute from nowhere, while Akira disappeared into the head wagon to retrieve a second biwa. I wasn't at all sure how they could make a tune out of that mess of instruments, but they did.

Back in my old life, I'd been fond of a lot of different types of music. As long as the melody was good, I could listen to just about anything. Country, rock, pop, techno, metal—it was all good, really. I mean, I had stuff I hadn't been all that fond of before, since everyone does, but I used to immerse myself in music. I used to sing, too, even if I hadn't been all that great. Music just…it was one of those things that made me content, even if I wasn't happy, because it was _better_.

Better than just being left alone with my own thoughts for hours, anyway.

In my new life, though, the main music I ran into was during festivals. Working songs, too, but they weren't as common in shinobi districts. Civilians had more fun with them.

Before I even noticed what was happening, I was already drumming my fingers on my leg.

Sensei was humming. Kakashi groaned and clamped his hands over his ears. Obito started giggling, probably because of Kakashi's reaction.

**This is the ninja version of Kumbayah, isn't it?**

Even if it was, I didn't mind.

* * *

**A/N:** Just buildup at the moment. ;)


	23. On Being Invisible

The next day, we were in the foothills. Watching the river next to us speed up was pretty interesting, since it reminded me of my once-home, a lifetime ago. There weren't any salmon in the rivers that ran through the Land of Fire—I think—and the wildlife could get pretty oversized in places, but it was still something! Out here, the trees had turned orange with autumn colors the way they never did in Konoha, and some of the mountains had dark rings of clouds around them that signified snow.

I remember standing on the top of a hill, just looking back at the shadow of Soragami and wishing I could fix that moment in my memory forever. Unfortunately, no one in ninja-land had developed the Polaroid camera. We were all a bit busy stabbing the hell out of each other.

It was just our second day on the road with the Chinatsugumi caravan, but we were already starting to fall into a pattern. Early in the morning, Kakashi would be on point while Sensei walked behind us the whole way until lunch. Then they'd switch. Obito and I would be wandering up and down the length of the wagon train, slowing down or speeding up whenever it seemed like we were needed. All the while, all of us were keeping watch.

Kakashi had a strong sense of smell from what I remember, so I guess he could have been sniffing our route out for us. Sensei just seemed to catch everything no matter where he was, though I wasn't sure how. Obito, despite not having activated his Sharingan, was still an Uchiha and had very good eyesight even if his mental focus wasn't great.

For my part, I just kept suppressing my chakra and searching for other signatures that I couldn't identify.

The second day passed without incident.

That night, though, I asked if Rikuto knew any songs other than Ninja Kumbayah.

This, in hindsight, was a mistake.

"Well, yeah. I like to tailor my songs to the listener, though!" Rikuto said after we finished dinner. He whistled. "Hey, Za-chan, get off your ass and help me out with something!"

The woman who emerged from the fifth wagon was, in some ways, not all that dissimilar to Rikuto in looks. Like him, she looked like living outside in the sun was her favorite thing to do, and her hair was actually bleached by it—it was a kind of dirty blonde—and she, like Rikuto, had teal-colored eyes. She stared when she saw me, though I honestly was too busy wondering why she hadn't bothered to emerge from the wagons for more than a few minutes at a time so far.

The reason became obvious when I saw that she was practically waddling. In the back of my mind, I had to wonder who the hell would send a pregnant woman on a trip like this one.

Then again, if she was anything like Chinatsu, she would have made the choice on her own anyway.

"Oho! So someone needs my singing voice, do they?" the woman said, smiling broadly. "About time! I heard that racket last night."

"Zakuro, try not to traumatize anyone." Chinatsu said bluntly.

"No promises!" Zakuro said with a terrible grin, and then the music started.

Zakuro took a deep breath.

_Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state  
A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake  
No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber  
Until I realize that it was you who held me under_

I froze. It was so…familiar. And far too close to home. I hardly realized that I was shaking until Sensei pulled me into a one-armed hug. His voice seemed to come from very far away. "Kei-kun?"

_Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids  
Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs_

Rikuto's eyes were boring into mine. Zakuro was staring at me, eyes wide open.

_No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone  
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden  
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love  
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love  
No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world_

How did I know them? How did _they_ know _me_?

My head was full of triggers and I couldn't make the visions stop. I heard the Dreamer screaming her defiance at the weight of my memories, at something so deep and dark that it was blotting out the real world.

I dug my fingers into my hair, trying to focus on something else. Something was wrong, something was always wrong. The pressure was building.

_And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack  
All around the world was waking, I never could go back  
Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open  
And finally it seemed that the spell was broken_

I blinked when the music stopped. Sensei's right arm was clamped around me and around Obito, who had decided that I needed a hug around my ribcage. Kakashi was nearby, giving me and the merchants a pretty speculative look.

Chinatsu, it seemed, had slapped Zakuro across the face and kicked Rikuto into his knapsack. She had an expression like a thunderstorm as she bit out, "_Stop. Traumatizing. Kids_."

I didn't want to look up to see Sensei's expression.

Suddenly, I didn't want to be anywhere near anybody else. Gently, I pried Obito's arms from my waist and shrugged off Sensei's hug. I got up, walked away from the campfire, and walked outside of the ring of wagons. Once I was out of sight, I dropped to my knees and slumped against a sack of rice someone had left out.

I needed to take a deep breath, so I did.

I needed to stop crying, so I dragged a sleeve across my eyes and called it good.

I needed a hug, but I'd left that option behind.

I was an idiot.

"Kei? It's me." Obito dropped to the ground next to me.

"Hey, Obito." I said, turning to face him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just…" I dropped my gaze for a moment, blinking my kneecaps back into focus. "It's nothing."

The look Obito gave me when I looked back at him said that he rather doubted that.

I sighed. "Look it's…it just brought up some bad memories."

Obito bumped my shoulder with his. "Like what?"

Might as well tell _someone_, right? It took me longer than it should have just to think of any words at all, though.

So Obito said quietly, "You don't have to tell me."

"No, it's…I just don't know _how_." I said, "I've never…"

_I've never shared my problems with anyone. I can't…_

I needed to stop assuming the people around me could read my goddamn mind. I had too many things in it for anyone to learn much of anything, much less what I needed.

We sat in silence for a while.

It wasn't really hard to think of the ways my life could, ultimately, mean absolutely nothing. They say that the measure of a person's value is in how they affected and improved the lives of those around them, and if the life, once lived and finished, made the world a better place. I knew that Rin hadn't really _done_ anything especially noteworthy other than be kind to Obito throughout their childhood the last time around, while Obito had carelessly shot his own life's worth into some kind of infinite negative zone with no way out.

I didn't know if being around was going to help anyone, and sometimes I felt like I had to do _something_, all the time, just to feel like I wasn't dragging everyone down by existing. The thing about the world is that it keeps spinning regardless of any individual lifetime, no matter how cruel that sounds, and it was like running on a treadmill just trying to keep up. I was trying to keep my head above water and it didn't always feel like I was succeeding.

Rikuto had stabbed at the heart of it. I wanted to save people from what I kept seeing as their fate, to prevent pain and misery. I wanted to help someone—anyone, even—live a little longer, or a little better. But this wasn't, in the end, the world I _remembered._ I was an extra.

But I still wanted to help.

"When I was little," Obito said, apropos of nothing, "I used to spend a lot of my time in my room. I just…I liked to imagine things. I still do, but I don't have to do it a lot anymore, since I have you and Rin-chan and Sensei and I can live them." He drummed his fingers on his leg as I looked over at him, expression blank. "Sometimes, I'd be so mad at everything I wished I could scream. I'd lock myself in my room and just…sulk, I guess."

I wondered where he was going with it.

"I used to think, 'I wish someone could see me.'" Obito said quietly. "I used to think, 'I wish someone would save me.' Being alone…it hurt worse than anything. So…"

_So I wasn't going to let anyone else suffer the same way._

I thought of dark rooms, of retreating when the world became too much. I thought about reading books about times and places I'd never have lived to see. I thought about the amber light from the streetlamps in my old life, highlighting rain as it fell. I thought about staring at my alarm clock until I was too tired to keep my eyes open.

The difference was that, in my old life and in my current one, someone always showed up in the end to make sure I was okay.

I didn't think anyone had done that for Obito.

"When you're upset, someone should always at least ask if you need them." Obito continued, still quiet and unusually serious. "Even if they have to break the doors down to ask."

"You're a really good person, Obito." I said, rubbing my eyes. "Thank you."

"Ready to talk about it?" Obito asked. "You don't have to, but…"

_Like I wouldn't, after you just bared your soul to me._

"Yeah, I…my brother was born when I was three, you know?" I said, looking up at the sky. "He wasn't really that strong, but it didn't seem to be a problem. But when I was six, he had to spend time in the hospital and no one was sure he was gonna make it."

It was a cheap way to dodge the issue with another one. It wasn't the cause of my problems, in the end or beginning of all things. But what was I supposed to tell him?

_Oh, Obito, my name isn't really Keisuke and I'm not really nine. I'm actually an adult trapped in a child's body as a result of a reincarnation gone horribly wrong, with split personalities solely to handle the physics-breaking reality of my existence. I've been having repeated flashbacks of the deaths of everyone I care about and I can tell you about the time when you almost died and Kakashi got your eye and Rin died and you went evil under the influence of your genetics and Madara Uchiha and FUCKING CRAZY and..._

Yeah, no. I wasn't inflicting that on Obito at any age if I could help it.

"Wait, is that how you met Yamaguchi-sensei?" Obito asked.

"Yeah. He's the reason Hayate-chan is still alive." I said, putting my chin in my hands. "Ever since…I worry. A lot. And I keep getting nightmares."

"Is that why you asked Sensei for the dawn watch yesterday? You said something about more nightmares happening closer to sunrise."

"Yeah. It didn't really help much, though."

I was such a fucking _wreck_.

"But…thank you. Obito, you really are the best boy I know." I said, swiping the tears from my face with my sleeve, again. "You didn't have to come after me."

"Yes, I did." Obito said seriously.

Maybe he did.

I didn't say anything about sensing Kakashi's chakra eight feet above us, on the roof of the wagon.

But I did refrain from kicking Kakashi out of turn, in the morning.

* * *

**A/N**: The song of the day is, as it happens, "Blinding" by Florence + the Machine. The lyrics are a little scarily apropos, and Florence's other songs are similar thematically and with motifs, both to each other and to this story. ;)

Also, Kei has issues. Who knew? :P

Review response:

**Guest:** You'll see. Also, none of the kids' voices have cracked yet, so any laughter is basically going to sound like a giggle for a while. ;)


	24. By the Skin of Our Teeth

On the third day, we were out of sight of Sorayama and Soragami entirely by lunch. Our path had taken us into a valley, which meant that we really couldn't see all that much of the horizon and that Sensei was on edge all while we were eating. A valley was, if it was any smaller, an excellent point for an ambush. The wagons couldn't maneuver very well in the hilly terrain, hemmed in on one side by a river and unfortunately burdened by the limits of pre-industrial wheeled vehicles with cargo in unstable terrain. Then there was the fact that, for most of the length of our trip through the valley, it was a twenty-meter drop to the water. And the rocks.

If they went off the road, we weren't gonna be able to get them back on it. And then we'd all be sunk.

It was about an hour after lunch before anything happened.

We had some warning, of course. I saw Kakashi's head whip around in pursuit of some scent I hadn't noticed, felt Obito's chakra indicate that he was alert again, and I felt the maelstrom that was Sensei's chakra begin to pick up. More than that, though, I felt multiple approaching chakra signatures, heading for us at a speed I could barely keep track of. They were coming from all directions, closing in on us like a ring of sharks.

And then a scream of rage sounded from the head wagon.

Part of what I'm going to describe was only pieced together after the fact. There are still gaps. I just remember enough to say that I had serious tunnel-vision when the chips were down.

I saw Chinatsu fall out of the first wagon, bearing a man I didn't really recognize to the ground.

There was a pulse of heat from Obito's side of the wagon, too intense to be anything like Obito's Grand Fireball, and the sound of screaming and clashing metal. Behind me, Sensei sounded like he'd engaged half a dozen fighters at once, from the sound of ringing metal and the _pop_ of the Flying Thunder God Technique's usual displaced air. Kakashi's segment, the head of the wagon, felt unaccountably _cold_, and I saw a spiky mass of ice and blood and human body parts fountain into the air.

Five mammoth chakra signatures had all made themselves known at once. One, creeping and merciless like lava from a shield volcano, must have been Rikuto. Another, howling like the Pacific in a full gale, was as much "Alaska" as "Hurricane Katrina," and registered as Shirozora once filtered out. A third, while subtler, was no less deadly—like a thunderstorm churning the ocean's surface in open water—Nanami. The fourth was wildly energetic, and I heard a screech like shearing metal from Rikuto's section—Zakuro.

The fifth I'd never sensed before, but I could pinpoint easily. Chinatsu almost _glowed_ with chakra, the excess wisps of it heating the air so much it distorted and looked like a mirage. The very ends seemed to actually catch fire. It was like watching someone unlock several of the Eight Chakra Gates.

It felt like standing on the surface of the sun.

But I didn't have time to dwell on any of that, because there were too many enemies. Last count had been nine—the number had doubled since. And almost all of them were shinobi.

My left hand closed around the end of my kodachi's scabbard, thumb primed on the blade guard. My right was around its handle. My entire body was angled forward, low to the ground, with the curve of my sword facing downward.

I barely even realized what I was doing. Mom and Sensei had trained me only too well, even though my body was so small and fragile still.

The enemy I saw first was older than me by about four or five years, and he was about thirty centimeters taller. He had brown hair and a scar across one cheekbone, a white line against a tanned face. He had black eyes, like mine, and a grin that showed four prominent eyeteeth. He didn't wear a hitai-ate, but I could sense his chakra all the same. He had curved kunai as primary weapons, and from his stance and chakra I could tell that he didn't take me seriously at all. There were so many more dangerous people, after all. He thought I was the Achilles heel of the formation.

(I won't say he was wrong—I was just insulted at the time.)

I drew.

_Gekkō-style Leaf Kenjutsu: Hunting Tiger Strike._

Within the Land of Iron, a neutral country defended by samurai rather than shinobi, the most powerful techniques are those that are so fast that shinobi can't counter them before being cut down. Given the speed of most shinobi, samurai _have_ to use chakra in order to multiply the speed and force of their strikes or else they'd be sitting ducks for other things. Like getting pounded by long-range ninjutsu, which is sort of our thing. And yet the Land of Iron is still there, despite the pressure.

The catch, though, was that ninjutsu, genjutsu, and even taijutsu generally relied on the assumption that the shinobi in question had enough time to use their hands to form seals. Or, when facing skilled samurai on the warpath, _keep_ their hands. Samurai didn't have time to be slow, or indecisive. They had to pick an opponent out and _remove_ them as soon as possible before the ninja magic bullshit popped up.

Some of the things Mom had taught me made me think that she, or her ancestors, had been samurai.

One of those things led to me cutting my chūnin-level opponent's fingers off with a single swing. I had the blade flipped around and swinging upward at his throat before either of us really even had time to process anything.

_Gekkō-style Leaf Kenjutsu: Curve of the Moon._

There was blood everywhere.

I didn't have any time to stop and maybe freak out a lot—_oh my god I just killed someone—_because my opponent's reinforcements were way faster than he was. Even as I was drenched in arterial spray, which neatly fucked over any attempt I could make to navigate the battlefield by sight.

**Enemy closing on your six! **The Dreamer screeched, clearly reading my own chakra sense better than I was at the moment, because _argh fuck blood in my eyes_.

In hindsight, I'd have to say they were chūnin, or maybe special jōnin without a combat specialization. Not that I knew that then. I just knew that someone tried to stick a genjutsu into my brain and the Dreamer was promptly distracted because she had to extract the foreign chakra from my system without any help from me. I was a little too busy trying not to die.

Even blinded, I at least had the advantage of knowing about the movement of my opponents' chakra. It meant that I didn't get myself cut in half or stabbed in the throat, at least.

But I also didn't realize I was being herded toward the river until my foot slipped and I was already falling.

I tried blinking, tried to clear the blood from my eyes, but I didn't have _time_. I hit the river hard, the freezing water closing over my head before I could do more than gasp for air, and then one of my enemies landed feet-first on my chest. A cloud of bubbles exploded from my mouth, driven out by the pressure and the shock, and hands closed around my throat.

There are no words for how terrified I was in that moment.

I was nine. I was barely a ninja. I was a girl who'd just killed a teenager with a sword. I weighed less than thirty kilograms. I had never learned how long I could hold my breath.

_Can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe…!_

For a while, all I did was claw frantically at my enemy. I'd dropped my kodachi in the midst of my panic, my fingers occupied in trying to pry his hands from my neck and dragging bloody furrows in his unprotected hands. I could almost see his face, distorted by the water and the fact that I was busy trying not to drown.

The next thing I knew, I couldn't move at all.

The blood was finally cleared from my eyes, though, and I blinked in an effort to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Okay, so I was still underwater. I could feel it, and my vision was predictably distorted. However, I was also apparently floating motionless in a bubble of water, while my enemy's non-distorted arm was in front of my face. The rest of him, though, seemed to be above the surface—sort of, though for some reason my inner ear was still telling me that I was upright. My enemy's arm was stuck in the side of the bubble.

I was stuck in my opponent's Water Prison Jutsu.

I hate my life.

My eyes closed.

There are, technically, two variations of the technique. One is used for live captures, and thus automatically filters oxygen from the water to keep the subject alive (see also: Zabuza Momochi, _The Wave Mission_). The other isn't, and therefore no chakra is wasted on keeping anything or anyone alive (see also: Kisame Hoshigaki-avatar, _Kazekage Rescue Mission_).

There are also two ways to disperse the technique. One, which was exemplified in the battle of Team Kakashi versus Zabuza Part the First, was to force the user to disengage and give up maintaining the technique. The other, as demonstrated by Team Gai versus clones of Kisame Hoshigaki, involved expelling chakra from every tenketsu at once in the hopes of disrupting the technique's cohesion.

I didn't have the chakra capacity necessary for the latter and I didn't know if any of my teammates were close enough to do anything to help per the former. The chakra-infused water was screwing with my sensing ability, and I was having a hard time figuring out what to do in order not to die in the meantime.

_FUCKING MIST NINJAS._

My brain, which was thankfully occupied by more entities than just me, flew into action.

I wasn't going to be a helpless little girl. I'd gotten this far—on my illegitimate smarts for most of it, granted, but I'd done it—and I wasn't going to let it end so soon. I had too much to do, and what I'd accomplished so far didn't feel like enough. My successes needed sequels. I needed _more_.

And as a completely relevant side note, I'd finally found a way to make Bullshitting the Fish Test Jutsu relevant to my life.

Making a patient breathe in defiance of the laws of physics and their bodies' capabilities was just the starting point for medical ninjutsu. I didn't need to use hand signs for most of my techniques, and I sure as hell couldn't make any at that moment even if I'd wanted to. No version of the Water Prison allowed movement, though it'd have been nice if this one had allowed _breathing_.

But as long as I was surrounded by my favorite medium for medical ninjutsu, I could at least take advantage of it.

Even the Water Prison has air circulating in it—only still water doesn't, and the Water Prison relied on having a rotating sphere of water charged with chakra around the victim. If it was still, the jutsu would be extremely expensive to maintain and to no benefit—without chakra circulation, there wasn't a lot of ways to maintain water outside of water. Disrupting the technique was based on knowing that much and on taking advantage of it with all the pragmatism being a ninja could offer. While it would be extremely chakra-intensive to force my lungs to accept water as a medium for oxygen transfer—not to mention the fact that I'd basically drown the second I stopped focusing, if I let more water in _willingly_—it would be much easier to force the air in the bubble to work _with_ me.

**I'll focus on channeling chakra into our tenketsu. Direct it!**

I could do that.

Bubbles streamed through the water, directing themselves toward my nose and mouth. I'd have enough for one breath—maybe two—and then I'd have to use that chakra I kept manipulating to fuck with the prison itself. It wasn't a perfect plan, but it bought me some time to think and my team some time to possibly mount a rescue effort.

I looked out at the rest of the world. Apparently my captor had decided to put me on display like a crystal ball on a pedestal. Or a snow globe, I guess.

Part of the landscape was on fire, though I couldn't tell if it was because of Chinatsu, Obito, or Rikuto. Half of the attacking group was already dead or in various states of grievous injury. At least one person had been swamped by lava, while the strange man from before had been literally burned to death by Chinatsu (probably). Someone looked like he'd been shocked to death—so was Kakashi a Hei-type lightning user? There were half a dozen dead soldiers around Sensei, who casually _destroyed_ the seventh with an offhanded Rasengan.

I learned later that it had been the first time he had use more than two Rasengan in a single fight, and mostly because he'd been separated from his students.

And then there was the statue of ice and blood and chunks.

I had a sudden vision of November 11 wiping out his traitorous superiors by killing them with the flash-frozen contents of a bottle of scotch. Even if he'd died doing so.

It was at about that point that I determined that I was _probably_ going loopy from oxygen deprivation.

**Breath one. Take it and hold it.**

_Got it._

There was a pause. **We've got company.**

It's hard to describe a chakra signature without comparing it to something else. Or at least it is for me—maybe other sensor-class shinobi have it easier. They'd been born with their chakra sense, or trained it, and didn't really seem to have a concept of what it would be like to be unable to sense it at all. Point is, there's a "feel" to everything and there was _definitely_ a "feeling" that had decided to superimpose itself on the Water Prison, apparently without my captor noticing. It was focused mostly around my waist and back, swirling around counterclockwise to the jutsu's clockwise.

Looking out at the road, I saw Sensei shout something. I saw Obito and Kakashi behind him, with Sensei's hand out to hold them back, while Rikuto had a bow—a bow, seriously?—trained at my captor. Chinatsu was still doing her glowing thing, while Shirozora was standing on Sensei's other side.

I was pretty sure he was the one that kept making gore-popsicles out of people. Having him looking at me was kind of a bad thing.

Then a lot of things happened at once.

The Water Prison jutsu exploded into what was basically a water ball of spikes and death, though I had no idea how or why. I think I saw Shirozora hold up his arms, like a waterbender, but when the water ball broke down due to lack of chakra, I was being held in someone's arms like a sack of rice. I didn't know if they'd been there to start with or if someone had just _materialized_ out of the water. I heard someone scream, though distantly, and the world seemed to pitch sideways. I was suffering from what felt like swimmer's ear or something, because my head hurt and my lungs burned and my ears felt like they were full of water still.

**_FOCUS, DAMMIT_**.

Sound came back in a terrible rush. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, which was distinctly unhelpful for my headache.

Whoever had decided I made a decent stuffed toy had decided to let my feet touch the ground, at least. I blinked once or twice and realized a lot of things at once.

One: I had killed someone.

Two: All of the enemy shinobi were either dead or suffering from various states of being frozen, burned, or dismembered. Sometimes more than one of the above.

Three: My team was crowding around me, even though I was just kind of sitting stupidly on the ground with another person for support.

Four: Chinatsu was biting Akira's arm, and he'd helpfully rolled his sleeve up to let her. It had a lot of bite scars on it.

Five: Sensei was pretty much up to his elbows in blood. Kakashi had blood spattered on him, likely from arterial spray or something, while Obito was just a little scuffed up as though he'd taken a tumble in the dirt.

Six: The guy I'd fought first was lying headless on the ground next to the wagon-ruts. Holy _shit_.

Conclusion: The entire situation was a _lot_ beyond my solo coping abilities.

"Kei, are you all right?" Sensei asked.

If I'd been a hardened shinobi, I could have probably chalked up my reaction to having exploded eardrums or something considerably less mundane. I didn't have any real experience with killing, and on my old life I'd only thought vaguely about it. Not in the sense of "I will kill him," but the more passive, "I wish he was dead." Or "I wish [insert person here] was hit by a bus for being a waste of oxygen/pity/money/humanity."

Anyway, my response was to throw myself at Sensei and hug him as hard as I could, burying my face in his flak jacket. And if I managed to get Obito and Kakashi as collateral huggees—which I did, since I was growing just a _bit_ faster and turning out just a _bit_ lankier at the moment—then I could force the reality of the situation away for a bit. Sensei's arms, in turn, wrapped around all of us. I felt someone's hand mussing my hair, but that was okay. I needed that.

"First kill?" I heard Chinatsu's voice ask.

I felt Sensei nod.

"Ah," she said. "Nanami, did you get her sword and the hitai-ate?" Nanami—apparently my rescuer—must have made some kind of affirmative gesture, because Chinatsu said, "All right, then. Kick the icicles in the river and bury the rest. Also, Shirozora-chan? _Stop freezing people_. It just makes a mess."

And on and on. I didn't care about her anymore. I didn't care about any of their stupid déjà vu bullshit—none of that meant anything when compared to the fact that all of Team Minato was alive and together.

Though I was _gonna_ get answers when I recovered, make no goddamn mistake. I'd put it off long enough. After what I'd been through, I didn't have the right to be a coward about it anymore.

* * *

**A/N:** Also, review responses~

xVentressx: Yeah, Kei isn't really planning on telling anyone about her status. Especially not Obito. ;)

EXPLANATION CHAPTER NEXT. :D


	25. No More Runarounds

By nightfall, we were well away from the battle site. Between Rikuto's Earth Release jutsu and Shirozora sweeping everything into the river with some strange Water Release technique I could only call "ninja waterbending," the area was at least clear of bodies and blood. While any tracking-type group would have no trouble finding us, hopefully the bodies they discovered would deter any further attack.

We'd made…a bit of a mess. To say the least.

So, I found myself sitting with my team and Chinatsu's inner circle when it was time to debrief everyone on the situation late that night. Granted, I was leaning pretty heavily on Sensei, since my childish stamina was pretty much bottoming out, but at least I was attending the conversation. Obito was on my other side, while Kakashi was by Sensei's left, and the merchants-of-doom had apparently decided to make a semicircle around Chinatsu, who sat directly in front of Sensei.

Chinatsu tilted her head to the side. "Starting from my right, here, let's have proper introductions this time. Name and kekkei genkai, for the record."

Shirozora rolled his eyes. "Shirozora Yuki. My clan is originally from the Land of Water and our bloodline is Ice Release."

The Dreamer mused,** I wonder, are we looking at Haku's uncle here or something?**

Haku's psychotic uncle Mister Freeze, maybe, I thought.

Nanami inclined her head, rather than being rude like her apparent lover. "Nanami Hōzuki. My clan's ability is known as the Hydration Jutsu, which allows me to liquefy my body at will."

"That explains how you rescued me." I said, brows knitting together briefly. "And the strange chakra I sensed before the Water Prison collapsed."

She bowed again. "Yes. Though Shirozora's icicle spears dealt the fatal blow."

"Well, I can go next." Rikuto said, having raised his hand in a half-hearted wave. "Name's Rikuto Tetsuyama, former Iwagakure jōnin and wielder of the Lava Release kekkei genkai. Ditched the rest of the world and the forehead plate about eight years back."

**…what the ****_fuck_****? **

"Currently, Konohagakure is at war with Iwagakure." Kakashi said quietly, but in a very pointed tone.

"More power to you, then." Rikuto replied bluntly. "I stopped caring and the village can go fuck itself for all I care."

Chinatsu's hand lashed out and _wham_, Rikuto was nursing a broken nose in no time flat.

"Uh…I can fix that." I said hesitantly. I didn't really _want_ to get close to the guy who'd been a party to my freak-out the previous night, but I didn't like _not_ healing people.

"No need. He needs to learn to control his behavior around children sooner or later." Chinatsu said, glancing at Zakuro briefly but significantly. Then her laser-like golden stare focused on Akira. "Your turn."

"Ah, right!" Akira looked rather sheepish, actually. "I'm Akira Uzumaki—though really, I don't have any special kekkei genkai other than a large chakra reserve. I'm not even a trained shinobi!"

Something in Sensei's expression seemed to momentarily shift to shock, but it was gone pretty quickly. I think he must have been thinking of Kushina and her supposed status as the last daughter of the Uzumaki clan.

As far as Akira went, though, I _know_ I hadn't sensed him when the fight got rough. At the very least, everyone else in the area seemed to have him thoroughly outclassed. Then again, he was technically a civilian. He mostly felt like warm sunlight, though next to his burning sun of a lover I'm not sure how he _could _have really compared.

Zakuro raised her hand. "Oh, and I'm Zakuro Suzu, from the Land of Rice Fields. My clan isn't really all that large or even that important, but our kekkei genkai is actually genjutsu-based. It's called the Hypnotic Echo."

Okay, that was a new one.

"What is that supposed to do?" Obito asked.

"Oh, it lets me tailor my genjutsu to whatever my target will find the most unsettling." Zakuro said cheerfully. "I only have to aim for a mental state and the target's mind does the rest! I have plenty of other genjutsu that are based on sounds and not hand seals, and actual sound-based attacks! It makes everything very confusing." Zakuro went on, grinning. "I don't even really have to hear what my targets do if I don't want to!"

_Are you fucking kidding me?_

In summary, my brain had been turned against me and apparently the existence of genjutsu kekkei genkai made my genjutsu affinity _fucking worthless._ I'd essentially been made an accomplice in my own mind-fuck, which was all kinds of fucking crazy and I kind of wanted to punch someone.

"You used your genjutsu on me yesterday, didn't you?" I asked, not quite accusing her of anything. I couldn't keep the irritation out of my voice.

"Well, of course!" Zakuro said, oblivious. "I use it on everyone who travels with us! It's how we can tell who we can trust or dump in a river."

I didn't have _words_ for that.

"Oh, wait! I forgot something!" Zakuro said brightly, and clapped her hands.

Akira's hair went from strawberry-blond to deep red, while Shirozora and Nanami swapped hair colors, leaving him with green-black hair and her with white. Rikuto's hair turned brown, while Zakuro's hair turned reddish-orange.

"I also maintain genjutsu disguises for everyone!" Zakuro concluded.

"Moving on." Chinatsu said dryly, looking rather like she was contemplating slapping Zakuro again. "My full name is Chinatsu Kasai. My sister Misaki and I are former kunoichi, though we both retired four years ago in order to pursue the success of our mother's merchant caravan. I'm actually the third generation's firstborn daughter bear the 'Chinatsu' name, though the Chinatsugumi-specific caravans are named after me. My clan's specialty, rather than ninjutsu, was in fūinjutsu." She rolled up a sleeve and Sensei leaned forward slightly in completely blatant interest now that the conversation had turned to his area of "expertise."

Her arm was covered in five-point seals, the ink twisting out from the pentagram on the back of her wrist and curling around under her skin like a nest of thorns. The daughter seals were on her elbow and shoulder, with their own branches of ink. They were all tattooed on.

"A five-point seal." Sensei said contemplatively. "They're mostly used for chakra storage, though I guess you could make them work for weapons or supplies if you were _really _desperate. But I'm sure no one wants metal stuck _in_ their arm, so…"

Chinatsu nodded. "My sister and I have mirrored seals, along the opposite sides of our bodies. My left, her right. Both allow us to store our chakra for long periods of time. Unleashing a single seal is like opening one of the Eight Gates."

That explained the Super Saiyajin thing I'd seen. And how Chinatsu wasn't effectively crippled at the end of the fight…though I imagine that she hadn't been biting Akira just _because_. Unless there was some kind of sadomasochistic thing going on with them that I hadn't noticed, I guess.

"Is that why I couldn't sense you?" I asked, since apparently my tact was all used up for the foreseeable future.

"Yes." Chinatsu said, though her eyes narrowed a bit. "The shoulder seal allows me to hide my chakra among the natural energy field of the planet. I had them added after visiting a Fire Temple and learning of the concept."

So, Sage Mode chakra invisibility for the price of not actually being able to use Sage Mode. Good to know, I guess.

Oooookay then.

"Does that answer all of your questions?" Chinatsu asked, one eyebrow going up.

"For now, yes." Sensei replied, rather than letting us form our own answers. He stood up, and we all took our cue from him.

Then Sensei's hand landed on my head again. I was starting to think he was getting used to having me for an armrest. His other hand mussed Obito's hair. "And for _you_ three, Kei is on first watch. Obito, you're on third watch, after Kakashi. Kei-kun, wake Kakashi up in a few hours and try to be exact about it this time."

Sensei did not deserve to be a lousy morning person while still making us go on watch rotations.

Then again, I suppose we'd have to get used to the idea of running on little or no sleep if we were going to survive shinobi life. Then again, again, _we were nine._ I wasn't looking forward to growing up stunted _or_ maintaining my signature eye-bags for the foreseeable future.

I still ended up taking first watch without complaint, though. Not like complaining was gonna get me anywhere.

About forty-five minutes in, when my team had mostly dropped off to sleep (sans Obito's drowsy tossing and turning and occasional flopping limb that caught Kakashi in the shoulder), I sat on top of one of the wagons and tried to keep my eyes open. It'd been a _long_ day, and I'd happily go to confront my nightmares if it meant I'd be able to get _some_ shuteye. I just didn't want to be awake to deal with shit.

There was the sound of a footstep behind me and, the next thing I knew, Chinatsu was sitting next to me, her legs dangling over the edge of the roof while mine were crossed one over the other. I didn't jump, since she didn't take me by surprise now that I could sense the chakra from her seals, and neither of us said anything for a while.

When the silence finally bordered on becoming oppressive, Chinatsu said, "I suppose you're wondering why Zakuro targeted you, out of your team?"

I nodded.

The Dreamer gave me a mental poke. **Hey, wait…**

"This might require some background. Do you mind?" Chinatsu said.

"No, it's fine." I said. I mean, it wasn't like having _less_ information would help.

Chinatsu sighed. "All right then, kid." She held up one finger. "Perhaps you've felt the first sensation—the strong feeling of familiarity between you and I, as though we've met sometime before and made an impression? Nod if it sounds familiar."

I nodded.

"I've felt that déjà vu with nearly every person under my direct command." Chinatsu said squarely. "In order, Rikuto, Shirozora, Zakuro, Nanami, and Akira have all felt extremely familiar to me since we met, and the feeling was mutual. You see the result." She made an expansive gesture, clearly meant to include the entire caravan, and possibly its success. "We knew we could trust each other implicitly from the moment we met, like we were tied together by fate. Do you understand?"

I actually didn't. The Chinatsugumi's familiarity had actually been off-putting for some reason. It might have been the age gap.

Chinatsu must have seen my expression in the firelight, because she explained, "But when we met you, my sister and I, like our friends, felt _dread_. I've felt unrelenting hatred before, and acted on it, but you…you could be the cornerstone to something great, or a cause of nothing but pain."

My blood ran cold.

**Hey!**

"I don't know which path you'll choose. I don't know if it'll even be a choice." Chinatsu said grimly. "But my first idea was to ship you off to a Fire Temple and see what they'd make of you once your sensei loosened his control a bit. But it's clear now that you won't go."

I looked at Obito and Kakashi, almost unwillingly.

Kakashi was an arrogant jerk and I wanted to slap him more often than not, but he didn't _deserve_ to be alone and miserable and hated. I wasn't sure how much of an influence on him I could really be, given that the catalysts for his attitude shifts had always been the deaths of those close to him, from what I remember. But I had to try, right?

And Obito…dammit, I _wasn't_ letting him go off and crash and burn without a fight. Ever. Between me and Rin, we might even be able to keep him sane. And maybe alive.

**Don't you remember them? Ask her…**

But I already had an idea.

"What would you do, if you had to choose between love and duty?" I asked out of the blue, staring up at the starry sky. I had a hunch…

Chinatsu gave me a strange look. "You're a pretty weird kid, even for a possible devil-child."

"Yeah, I know." I said.

"Well…since I'm here, I'd say love." Chinatsu said after a moment. "I loved my family more than I loved being a shinobi."

**_And she made her own secure world out of nothing…_** The Dreamer and I thought together.

…Akira the noncombatant healer. Rikuto the earth-aligned archer. Shirozora, king of mood swings and most prone to brutally murdering his opponents. Zakuro, the illusionist… Nanami, the wallflower with water powers…

Wait.

_FUCK_.

I _knew_ them. Not on a person-to-person basis, but more in the sense of "Mwahaha! Dance, my puppets!" sense.

While remembering non-_Naruto_ or non-personal aspects of my life seemed to be a thing that came and went depending on what was triggered in my wacky headspace, I'd been a writer the last time I'd lived. Not a great one, or even a decent one with enough luck to get published, but I'd been one all the same. I'd lived inside my own head for at least a third of my waking moments, it seemed, which contributed to my unwillingness to do much in the world around me. I'd been a dreamer. I still was, but my dreams were much more practical than they had been, since I'd be dead by fifteen if they weren't.

And I'd written the Chinatsugumi.

Not in their current form, not under these names, and not with this exact team composition, but I'd written about people with the same personalities and the same pasts. And their futures, and their children, and their ending.

In another life, I'd literally been responsible for _everything _that happened to them or anyone they knew. Good, bad, joyous, or _fucking horrible_. Ultimately.

No wonder we'd gotten a mutual sense of "oh fuck."

"At the end of this mission, I'd like to stay in Konoha for a while." Chinatsu said quietly. "You seem like a good kid. I don't know if my presence will be good or bad for your development, but damned if I'll let you let yourself destroy the world."

"…Uh, likewise?" I said hesitantly. "I mean, um, it's not like I'd say _no,_ but…"

"I'd be staying regardless of whether or not you were some kind of hideous bomb." Chinatsu said bluntly. "But you've made me interested enough to extend the trip. Misaki can get along just fine without me."

"Uh. But isn't it called the Chinatsugumi?" For a reason, even.

Chinatsu shrugged. "It can be the Misakigumi for a few months."

I thought about that. While I had a watchdog for my actions in my head already, for all that I was actually capable of affecting given my age, it'd be…interesting, to see what a supposedly uninvolved bystander would see. I didn't know if she'd end up reporting to the Hokage or anything, but…

"I think I knew you too," I said, watching the stars drift slowly by overhead. "But…look. I don't trust you much. Not even based on a weird feeling."

"Understandable." Chinatsu said mildly.

"I feel like I knew you from…maybe a past life or something, but that doesn't mean that much for this one." Aha! A near-confession!

"So you're saying that I'll have to earn your trust. All of us will?" Chinatsu asked.

I said, "Yeah. Talk is cheap."

"Talk is expensive if you do it wrong." Chinatsu corrected me. A merchant to the core, then. "So, what do we of the Chinatsugumi have to do?"

I bit my lip. "Well…there's this technique Obito and I are having trouble with…"

Chinatsu gave me a funny look. Then she laughed, quietly. "All right. Tell me about this terrible new skill…"

I did.

At least I didn't have any more nightmares than normal, after all that. My brain was apparently so used to visions of blood and death that Mr. Dead Ninja didn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things. Not in the least because, as a shinobi, that would just be the start.

The next day, when we all took a break for lunch, Obito and I squared off. Rikuto dug his biwa out again, tweaking the strings. Chinatsu's civilian began to clap for percussion, while Akira, Shirozora, and Nanami primed their own instruments and Zakuro took a deep breath. And then the music started.

We didn't _quite_ manage to stay in synch, but we were a lot closer than before.

Turns out that, for me anyway, the flash of inspiration for pair-fighting was based on music. It was a lot easier when I had some kind of external timer, and I guess that was why Sensei brought a metronome to our team practices after that.

Obito's and my hands met in the center of the practice arena, perfectly in time after a couple of practice rounds, and we both grinned. Hell yeah, we were awesome.

* * *

**A/N:** So, having created the Chinatsugumi in another life (perhaps...), Kei is now put in the position of Anakin Bloody Skywalker with the Chinatsugumi as the Jedi Council. In the prequels. Fun times!

Review responses, other than this one, will be coming soon!

xVentressx: Well, she cut his fingers off and then decapitated him. Also, thanks for your kind thoughts!


	26. Leaving a Nest

We got to Konoha within a week, thankfully. There were no other major distractions, though since Obito and I spent what felt like nearly every waking moment trying to get used to each other's movements and time our attacks precisely (mostly using Kakashi or Sensei as targets), I could easily have missed something that one of the others saw, assessed, and dealt with. Rikuto's stock of arrows seemed to shrink every time I turned around, though we ate pretty well with all the game he seemed to bring down as collateral. Not that any of us were incapable of hunting, but he seemed bored and our team was a little busy with multiple accounts of attempted murder.

I mean, sure, technically we were only ambushing Kakashi when Sensei was busy and we weren't quite as dangerous together as he was alone, while jumping Sensei only took place at mealtimes. There was no actual killing intent involved.

Honestly, I think Sensei wrote it off as typical team roughhousing.

I kind of wondered what _his_ team—the old Team Jiraiya—had gotten up to in the past, since I didn't know anything about them other than what they had looked like in a team photo. I assumed they were all dead, though. All of Jiraiya's students sans Naruto ended up dead one way or another, even though it was completely unfair.

And one of them had even ended up killing him. One of Minato-sensei's students _could_ end up being the cause of his death as well. Sasuke had attempted to permanently kill Orochimaru for power…

I honestly think the only Sannin not to pass down some kind of bizarre murder-succession ritual is Tsunade, though she only has two students total from what I remember.

Anyway, back to our triumphant return.

Sensei got the gate guards to open the door, while the Chinatsugumi and their wagons finally made it back to civilization. So did we, of course, but Konoha was pretty wild when you were a ninja. Not because it was dangerous to live in, as a rule, but there was always something going on and about half of it involved shinobi arts somehow. I could at least guess that half of the shinobi in town were probably training, recovering from training, or preparing for more training. Stuff was probably exploding or being stabbed in every single training area.

It was nice and sunny, though the angle told us that it was past lunch and _also_ well past time to get some good old-fashioned comfort food in celebration of making it back from a B-ranked mission alive.

Or C-ranked. We hadn't made the rank change official yet, we hadn't gotten paid, and we hadn't checked into the hospital to make sure we hadn't all caught some kind of foreign death plague that only showed up after the infectious phase was over.

Okay, so I was paranoid.

"Obito, Kakashi, head to the Hokage's office. I'll meet you there in a bit." Sensei said, once the last of the merchant wagons had cleared the gates and set off for the market district.

"Sensei?" Obito began, and Kakashi blinked.

That was about when Sensei picked me up by the back of my jacket like I was an unruly kitten. "I'll be taking Kei-kun to the hospital for a quick checkup. As soon as I know for _sure_ that our misadventures didn't cause any trouble, we'll join you." Sensei waved with his other hand. "Try not to kill each other before we get back!"

Fuck.

And then we popped out of reality and then back in between blinks. We'd apparently traveled the entire length of the village and ended up in the hospital foyer due to the Flying Thunder God Jutsu. I guess it was nice to know that Sensei really did have the hospital tagged, for future reference.

"I hope you have a story for Mom about how I almost died." I said, still being lugged around.

"As long as you get a clean bill of health, I think that's your problem." Sensei replied, carrying me over to the receptionist's desk. Somehow, it was Ayako again.

"Oh, hello! How have you been, Kei-chan?" she asked, leaning forward over her paperwork. "And you, Namikaze-san?"

"I'm being a dead fish." I said flatly.

"We just returned from a C-ranked mission and Kei had a mishap with a river." Sensei replied. "I'd like to make sure my student's all right before we head in for a briefing—I've heard that water in the lungs is a serious risk for pneumonia."

"Oh! In that case, I'll get you checked into the mission-priority office right away." She scribbled something on her paperwork and handed a clipboard to Sensei. "Fill this out in the third room on your right."

Sensei nodded and I took the papers. He didn't set me down once.

We were shuttled through the waiting room so quickly that I barely had the time to scribble my name into the Patient Name box. We ended up in one of the smaller examination rooms, since it wasn't as though either of us were totally at our full growth, and because we were both conscious. Most casualties either weren't or wished that they weren't, and there were both stretchers and surgeries waiting for them.

"So, Kei-kun, how long have you been able to sense chakra?" Sensei asked, curious. I didn't really sense any particular feeling from him, but I also knew that there were ways to get around my chakra sense, now. Mostly because I was inexperienced, but that was really all that was needed.

"Pretty much forever." I said, shrugging.

Being able to sense chakra, while unusual, wasn't precisely _rare_. It kind of depended on what sort of chakra and under what conditions. Most shinobi could, at close quarters, get a fairly accurate reading on their opponent's level through concrete experience and because chakra _could _be felt, particularly through blows and through the usage of killing intent. But the range that I had, even if it wasn't much when compared to a Byakugan's much more solid and detailed perception, was abnormal. Sensor-type shinobi, at least in Konoha, tended to be Senju, Yamanaka, or Hyūga -descended. I was a kunoichi descended from two non-clan shinobi, and I hadn't exactly made a spectacle of my usage of my chakra sense. It wasn't the kind of thing that was, say, on the level of having a kekkei genkai or anything like that. It wasn't _flashy_, but it was useful.

I mostly used my sensing ability as a way to make it so my chakra control was limited solely by my attention span, and to tell where people were without looking. It also made it somewhat easier to copy chakra control techniques off of people, since it wasn't like I was really learning at the same rate or with the same material that my teammates were.

I was starting to see why most new teams were made of genin alone. The differing education and experience levels involved in our team were causes for frustration for everyone.

"Why didn't you mention it before?" Sensei asked.

"It didn't seem like a big deal." I replied. And it hadn't—most shinobi could tell enough from their environment based on other sensory cutes that my own extra perceptive ability was pretty much just compensating. That said, it was probably a little odd to see that awareness in a new genin, even if the chakra sensing was probably actually stunting my other investigative skills a little. "You and Kakashi do pretty much the same thing, though Kakashi uses his nose and I think you use seals somehow."

Sensei's left eyebrow rose. "Obito doesn't have that ability yet, Kei, since he's still new. You are too. And Kakashi and I have been in the field for a while."

_No shit, Sherlock_, I thought in a burst of petulance. I didn't _want_ to be in the hospital again. Even if the chances of seeing Rin were higher than normal, and I could see Yamaguchi-sensei again (and get criticized), I was also rather tired of always being told to either explain myself or shut up or something in between.

**It's at times like this that I wonder how old you are, and if you really ****_did_**** work in retail.**

"It's not a criticism, Kei-kun." Sensei said. "It's just that I don't see why you didn't tell anyone."

I frowned. "But…"

I stood out for enough reasons already, didn't I? I was a genius according to other people, my stats were insane, I actually had a weapon specialization, and now I was a known sensor. I'd have happily never have gotten involved in the ninja business at all if I'd been born as, say, the ramen chef Teuchi's first daughter. But I hadn't and now I was neck-deep in the mess and a part of my brain that wasn't the Dreamer or Id was telling me I didn't have enough to make it.

I have some self-doubt problems. Always have. Seems like I always would.

Sensei patted my head. "Kei-kun, it's all right. I was just curious."

_No more dreaming of the dead…_

I drew my knees up to me chest, even though they'd been dangling off the side of the exam table, and wrapped my arms around them.

"Are you sure you're all right, after what happened on the mission?" Sensei asked, concerned.

"I don't know." I said. "A lot of stuff happened…"

Our team's first out-of-village mission, my first kill, my first near-death experience…

Man, what a shitty month.

"Does anyone even know what happened?" I wondered aloud, because I didn't even really remember if I'd told my story during the early part of the debriefing. I'd been too tired to do or think all that much for a while there.

"I have an idea." Sensei replied. "You engaged an enemy shinobi in combat, and were captured. He was an upper-level chūnin, Kei-kun. It happens sometimes. That's why we're deployed in teams."

No, that wasn't… "There was another one before him." I said, swallowing. "I killed him."

Sensei said nothing for a long moment.

And just as he was about to say something, there was a knock at the door. "Hey, I heard my reckless former student was injured on a mission. Mind opening up?"

Good old Yamaguchi-sensei. But where did he get off calling me a "former" student? As far as I knew, I still wanted to learn medical ninjutsu, and I sure as hell hadn't _quit_.

"Sure, you can come in." Sensei replied for me, and the door opened, allowing both

"Kei-senpai!" Rin said, since apparently she'd also heard the news and decided to follow along. Or maybe she always followed Yamaguchi-sensei around—I didn't know much about internships, other than the fact that Rin was in one and being an apprentice at the same time. I wasn't sure if she was taking missions at all or if her apprenticeship counted for a lot of them.

"Hey, Rin-chan." I said, uncurling from my defensive ball. "How've you been?"

"Good, but I don't think I can say the same for you." Rin said, grasping my hands in hers. "What _happened_?"

"Enemy shinobi, mostly." I replied blandly.

"Somehow I doubt you'd attempt to drown yourself for fun." Yamaguchi-sensei said dryly, fishing a stethoscope out of a drawer. He looked at Minato-sensei, "And by the way, where were you when my former student was getting herself killed?"

"Dealing with another seven of them." Sensei said in a somewhat frosty tone.

Yamaguchi-sensei made the sort of face that made me think that he thought that wasn't a good explanation _at all_. I guess he did like me. Kinda.

…Well, it wasn't like this was exactly the Kakashi vs. Orochimaru confrontation over Sasuke, since none of us were psychopaths, Minato-sensei was a combat shinobi while Yamaguchi-sensei wasn't _exactly_ the same way, and I wasn't going to go off on a crusade for power to kill a nonexistent older sibling due to a brain-frying tattoo, but I could still feel the tension in the air. Minato-sensei and Yamaguchi-sensei didn't seem to be buddies at all.

Rin seemed cheerfully oblivious, at least.

"So, how's your apprenticeship been?" I asked.

"Oh, it's been interesting! I mean, I'm not out doing C-ranked missions or anything, but I do get a chance to help other teams out with D-ranks and I spend a lot of time learning from everyone in the hospital! Even the civilian doctors are really very good at what they do." Rin said earnestly. "I'm learning a lot every day."

I smiled back. "Well, it's better than what I've been learning."

I was sure I felt a spike of interest from Sensei.

"What?" Rin looked so adorably confused. She really was a nice kid, though she had some pretty major blind spots when it came to Obito.

Obito: Mr. Friendzone.

I was kinda hoping it wouldn't stay true this time around.

"What, have I been skimping on your training?" Sensei asks.

"I still haven't learned water-walking yet." I replied. "It might have helped."

Sensei's eyes narrowed slightly. "You…are trying to guilt me into something."

"Depends. Is it working?"

"Shut up, both of you." Yamaguchi-sensei said. He looked at me. "And you, turn around so I can listen to your breathing."

I found out later that, no, I hadn't swallowed or inhaled harmful amounts of water and that Yamaguchi-sensei thought Minato-sensei was incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Minato-sensei, meanwhile, had the completely accurate impression that Yamaguchi-sensei was an arrogant jackass with a soft spot for maybe three people in the course of ever. He usually wasn't quite so bad, though I suppose that my promotion to Team Disaster had made my status as his student, as well as my mom's and Minato-sensei's, somewhat nebulous.

Then again, I'd been the informal type of student since day one. Sort of like the neighbor kid you taught how not to mow his legs off.

"Do you even want to continue with your lessons?" Yamaguchi-sensei had asked.

"I would, if I could find any time between Mom and Minato-sensei and missions." I'd said. "Heck, even if I can only learn when Rin is and we have totally different lessons, I'd still do it!"

Yamaguchi-sensei had looked at me for a long moment. Then, "No."

A cold ball of lead seemed to form in my stomach.

**Wait, what? No! We need to learn, for when Obito and Kakashi need us the most!**

"Kei-kun, you have mastered chakra scalpels and the Mystical Palm," he'd explained. "There isn't anything else I can teach you without having you enter a formal apprenticeship like Rin did, where you dedicate nearly every waking moment to medicine, and it's just too early to risk your team's dynamic. You've only been a genin for three months."

"I…" I'd bitten back tears and said in a small voice, "Oh. Okay."

Yamaguchi-sensei had given Minato-sensei a very cold look. "But for _your_ sake, I'd better not see her in here for at least three months with anything more severe than a head cold."

Minato-sensei had put his hand on my head. Again. "We'll be fine."

Yamaguchi-sensei made a dismissive noise and shooed us out.

Rin had followed, though. "Kei-senpai…"

"I'm not sure I'm your senpai anymore, Rin-chan." I said around a lump in my throat. I was hard to talk, then. "Not that I was for long, but…"

"You're still my senpai." Rin had said seriously. "And you should look after Obito and Kakashi-kun, because you're there when I can't be. And I can't be there for you, either, so you have to take care of yourself better than you have been! A medic-nin can't die until the last of her team is beyond saving!"

"…I'm not a medic-nin, Rin-chan." I said.

"You might as well be." Rin insisted. "You never studied the oaths or the precepts but you've still got healing jutsu and that's enough!"

And then she hugged me.

"Thanks, Rin-chan." I said. Then an idea struck me. "Should I hug Obito and Kakashi too? Saying it's from you?"

"Why can't they be from you?" Rin asked.

"Because I punch them and they'd believe you instead of me."

"…Kei-senpai, you should be nicer to your teammates."

"I agree." Sensei had said. "Come on, it's time for that delayed debriefing. The Hokage won't wait forever."

And then we were gone.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for the amazing response, everyone! :D

Also, if you're curious as to know why I had to switch up my updating schedule at all...well, I have a job now! Very time consuming.


	27. Recovery

The Mission Assignment Desk was actually pretty crowded when we got there, since I guess it was the peak season for missions before the far inland parts of the Land of Fire finally realized it was late autumn. The Land of Fire, true to its name, was pretty goddamn warm all year round, but it shared some climate traits with, say, the Andes in some particularly high altitude places. It wasn't much compared to the Land of Lightning or Earth, where mountains were _the_ geographic feature of the millennia, but we had snow and actual _winter_ in some places. A lot of merchants, not just the Chinatsugumi, were making their last trips of the year, and that meant a lot of money coming into town and a lot more local missions for those shinobi who could take them. There were a lot of genin teams there, along with the occasional reporting chūnin and a few lone jōnin.

I kinda didn't want to ask what everyone above genin was doing this time of year. While Team Minato hadn't been deployed to the actual front lines yet, the war was still on. We weren't going to stay at home forever.

Some of the genin teams looked like they had already been deployed. A couple of them were missing members. Obito, Kakashi, and I were the smallest kids in the room, even if Kakashi had probably seen more action and more battlefields than all of us genin combined.

Sensei stopped a chūnin desk worker and said, "Team Minato, delivering a mission report and requesting paperwork for a mission class upgrade."

The chūnin, who looked a little like Obito and therefore might have been an Uchiha (though I didn't see the clan crest anywhere), nodded and pulled the relevant paperwork seemingly out of absolutely nowhere. "Here you go."

Paperwork ninjas are a breed all their own, I swear.

"Thanks," Sensei replied, and the chūnin just sort of seemed to disappear into the background buzz of the room. He turned to us. "I have three copies of the mission report paperwork here. While normally Kakashi and I would fill out our own sheets, I'll be proofreading what we have before we file them. No making yourself out to be some kind of super-ninja unless you actually did something super-ninja-like, and no tangents. Try not to get a paper cut or something."

Filling out paperwork with no embellishments is possibly the most boring thing in existence. So I'll quietly skip over that part—it's not like what happened isn't obvious at this point, anyway.

After the paperwork was filed, and after Sensei attached a fifth form to justify the bump up in mission grade as well as pay, we all left the office entirely. We could have, technically, been debriefed by the Hokage if our mission had been particularly important, but it hadn't so we didn't. Anyway, despite Sensei's obvious skill, he was a few years away from being made Hokage-to-be and _we_ were a couple of years from being much more than dead weight.

As soon as we were outside in the late afternoon sun, Sensei yawned and stretched. Then he said, "Well, at this point you're all dismissed. There won't be any training tomorrow, so rest up for the next big session and the next mission while you can."

Internally, I was torn between whooping in joy and reflexive cringing. On one hand, I was back in Konoha and that meant my bed was well within walking distance. On the other hand, I was definitely going to have to explain the events of my mission to Mom. I'd tried lying to her before, about minor stuff like chores and the occasional "where did you get that bruise" during my school days, but if nothing I said would fly then, serious stuff never would.

_Dah-dah-dah-dah, we're dead_, I thought.

**Lighten up. **

Bluh. I needed a distraction. Even if I knew Mom was probably gonna kill me for almost getting myself killed (and wasn't that a stumper), I figured I could at least have one last hurrah.

Well, if my family's financial straits had improved any I would have probably invited my team for dinner. As it was…

"Does anyone want to meet up later tonight for a midnight snack?" I asked.

"What's it gonna be?" Obito asked instantly, never one to turn down snacks or sweets.

"Well, we could go out for dango, but I can also get apples in the market." I shrugged. Personally, I would hit my limit for dango in no time flat if I ate it like Obito did, but I hadn't gotten tired of apples yet. I wasn't sure if they were really a favorite food, for me, but I remembered vaguely that Kakashi disliked sweets.

Despite the fact that he and I didn't get along, I didn't actually want to exclude him from stuff. It just…kinda happened.

I think that might have been worse, in a way.

Besides, apples were cheap this time of year.

"Well, since you're buying, I guess you get to pick." Obito said after a while. I could tell that he was a little disappointed—he knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't choose dango _again_.

"Apples." Kakashi said instantly, and I think it might have just been to spite Obito. Of course, whether it was or not, Obito took it that way and glared.

It could also have just been that Kakashi liked apples more than dango. Slightly or otherwise.

"One vote for apples and two abstaining," I concluded. "Apples it is. Sensei?"

"That sounds all right. So, should we meet around eight or so?" Sensei asked. "Training Ground Three is still open.

"Sure."

And then we were all off to our various afternoon tasks.

For my part, that meant stopping by the market district and grabbing apples. I was pretty sure Mom didn't have any stocked up, since Hayate and I generally were okay with whatever she put on the table and hadn't really been much for special requests. I also knew basically nothing about buying apples, other than the fact that bruises probably weren't going to be conducive to a long shelf-life and organic stuff was the name of the game.

Oh well. No time like the present to learn, I thought.

In summary? Listen to the merchant who runs the fruit stall. That stuff is their livelihood, and they'd damn well better be able to figure out what is and what isn't going to sell well and get them paid. Otherwise they're lousy and they don't get customers and they fail.

Also, talk to the old ladies who visit said stalls religiously.

So, I had ten (for safety's sake) apples in two grocery bags when I made my way home at long last.

"I'm home!" I called as I entered, dropping my bags and my pack by the door. I'd started to kick my sandals off by the time I got any responses.

And it was like I had somehow picked up mole summons. Only they were my family and sticking their heads into the hallway—and Hayate seemed to have picked up a couple of extra voices or something. I couldn't see the living room from my position, but I could sense extra chakra signatures easily. Hm. It bore investigation.

"Sis!" Hayate shouted, and promptly knocked me onto my back and into a pile of shoes. Now that I thought of it, Hayate didn't own this many pairs of kids' sandals and none of his were black heel setups. Even if they were tiny and the heels digging into my shoulders were nothing compared to the combat heels some kunoichi wore.

Now _that_ was interesting.

I promptly noogied the hell out of him. I was learning something from Sensei after all!

"Nooooooo, stop it!"

"Welcome home, Kei-chan." Mom's voice said from the kitchen. I guess seeing that I was still intact enough to start play-fighting with my brother had assured her that I was also in good enough condition that she could return to dishwashing duty. "By the way, you can let Hayate-chan go now."

I did so, and we giggled in the hallway like idiots for a moment. I put my hand on his head, notably _not_ going straight to manhandling, and said, "So, how's my favorite little brother been while his sister's been away?"

"I'm your _only_ brother." Hayate said.

Pah. He'd still be my favorite if I had another brother.

I think.

**You're seriously trying to turn your brain into a pretzel, aren't you?**

"Details, details." I said dismissively. "So, who are your new friends?" I asked, trying to get a better look at the source of the sudden squeaks I was hearing. Hayate was limiting my movements because he was still sitting on my leg.

"Come and meet them!" Hayate chirped, pulling me to my feet.

Well, he'd sure gotten stronger.

We stumbled into the living room once I'd ditched my sandals and pack and groceries, and nearly crashed into our two guests. Score one for ninja grace and poise—but what the fuck, I was tired anyway and I was torn between wanting to meet Hayate's new best buddies and maybe collapsing in bed for a nap.

The kids were both about Hayate's age, give or take months either way, and thus shorter than me by about a head. They were skinny as heck in the way that ninja children tended to be (if they weren't Akimichi clan kids), and stared up at me like I was some kind of ultra-badass superninja or something.

The first kid, a boy, was about Hayate's size. He was tanned, like he spent a lot of time in the warm Konoha sun, and had very dark brown hair tied up in a pineapple-shaped tail, sort of like the Nara clan's signature style. He wore a light beige shirt with ninja wire mesh underneath, and was missing two of his front teeth.

The second kid was a girl, with her purple hair tied up in a pair of adorable pigtails. She was actually bigger than either of the boys by a bit, with dark eyes and super-long eyelashes. She wore a white-and-blue dress with flowers on it, with standard dark blue shinobi leggings underneath.

I had a couple niggling suspicions that I knew these kids from somewhere, but my brain wasn't attaching names to faces all that well.

"So, I know that you're my brother's friends, but I have no idea what your names are." I began, even as I unstrapped my kodachi and stuck it on its holder well above the grabbing height of enterprising six-year-olds. _I_ could walk on walls, but they probably wouldn't learn until they were old enough to understand that real steel blades were not toys.

Hence why our family's wall mounts for stuff were always at least a meter and a half off the ground.

"I'm Yūgao Uzuki," said the girl, and my brain automatically conjured up an image of a purple-haired ANBU standing in front of the Memorial Stone.

_Dammit._

The boy raised his hand, as though he was in a classroom. "Iruka Umino."

_Double dammit._

"Hayate-chan, you're officially making friends faster than I am." I dropped my hand onto his head, and he jumped. I grinned as he gave me a pout—he'd been expecting another wrestling match. "So, kids, how's life been since I was gone? How are classes going? How are your families?"

While the kids talked, I thought.

Yūgao Uzuki, assuming she grew up at all, would be a very skilled kunoichi and eventual ANBU member. Her specialty had _seemed_ to be kenjutsu, which she could have either learned from Hayate, from ANBU, or, in this new reality, from someone in our family. Eventually, she'd surpass Hayate in blade work, and remained a successful shinobi well past Pain's hideous stomping match with Konoha.

Iruka Umino, as a chūnin Academy instructor, had been instrumental to the lives and sanity of several different kids in the future and more skilled than Anko. Despite being dubbed too nice to be a jōnin, not to mention lacking in any major trump cards aside from his exceptional intelligence, Iruka had been _strong_.

And my brother had somehow managed to befriend both of them and possibly a number of other kids in his class.

My graduating class was made of cannon fodder by comparison.

I was, of course, assuming that the skills that allowed them to survive the gauntlet of genin and chūnin rank stayed useful even in a warped timeline.

Anyway, Iruka and Yūgao hung around for a while, but I ended up sort of just falling asleep on the couch whenever they and Hayate finally decided to go outside to play. When I woke up, Mom had just dropped a blanket over me and made the couch rock by sitting down by my head. Hayate, it seemed, had taken off with his friends—I could sense his presence, but out in the neighborhood as opposed to inside the house.

"Kei-chan, what happened on your mission?" Mom asked.

…So, I wasn't as good at acting normal as I thought.

"We got attacked." I said quietly, wondering what had given me away.

Let's see. I killed a boy maybe six years older than me, I nearly drowned, and I was mind-hacked by a crazy lady with a genjutsu kekkei genkai and a penchant for friendly fire. Oh, and Yamaguchi-sensei had told me to get lost.

…Yeah, maybe I needed to get a _lot_ off my chest.

So I told her.

The whole time, Mom's fingers threaded gently through my hair.

"What am I supposed to _do_?" I asked after I'd finished.

Mom said nothing for a moment. Then, "Kei-chan, you're younger than I was when I killed someone for the first time. My situation was different than yours, but…" Mom paused. "Listen. And think. Ask yourself if there had been another, practical way to make sure you made it home safe. Think on whether you would trade an enemy's life for your teammates or your sensei. Then you'll know if you can live with your decision."

I said nothing for a long time. And I thought, like Mom asked.

I wasn't some kind of soldier fighting for some cause of a nebulous country or philosophy I didn't give a shit about.

I wasn't some revolutionary.

I wasn't a mass-murdering psychopath.

I wasn't a martyr.

I was just a girl on a battlefield.

And I fought for the people around me, so they'd have a better future. I couldn't control the future, but…but I could do my best, and try to help everyone I could. I could only act in the moment, not the future or the past. I could only defend the people within reach.

I could live with that. I'd have to, but it wasn't a hard decision on its own.

Besides, if I was gonna be much of a shinobi, I'd need to learn to stuff battle emotions away into a box for later sorting. Combat came with adrenaline and endorphins and fear and pain and anger, and untangling that Gordian knot would take time and practice.

I resolved to talk things over with Mom as much as I could.

Later that day, after I'd showered and changed and eaten a bunch of onigiri that had been in the refrigerator, I headed out to meet my team. I stuffed the apples into my now-empty backpack, took my kodachi from the wall (in case of random fights), and took off.

"I'll be back by bedtime, Mom!" I called.

"You'd better be!" Mom called back.

Konoha at night is actually rather pretty. I remember reading, somewhere or some-when, that some cities in World War Two used to turn all of their lights off after dark in order to try and baffle enemy bombers. The logic went that only factories kept their lights on, since their products would obviously need to be worked on around the clock to make their way to the front lines, and any bombers flying over cities would obviously target the light-show in order to cause as much damage as possible. It was the days before night vision eyepieces and things, and I'm not sure the strategy always worked.

The reason I mention this is because Konoha, despite being at war, doesn't really act like it when it comes to the civilian part of the populace. Then again, airplanes don't exist here and the number of shinobi who can attack from above in any strategically meaningful sense number in the single digits. The civilians were generally safe, if not content.

Besides, most of our fighting seemed to take place well outside the Land of Fire at the moment, despite Iwagakure's repeated incursions. I don't think any of the major villages get hit directly with much of anything other than infiltration attempts until _Orochimaru's_ attempted invasion far in the future.

Barring the Nine-Tailed Fox's appearance after the war, anyway.

There were more than a few ways to avoid the latter, though they're just theories and half-formed plans.

I ended up at Training Ground Three at about seven-fifty. No one was there yet, and I ended up hanging out next to the Memorial Stone for a while even if it killed my night vision horribly.

_I hope I'm making you proud, Dad._

_Miss you._

I had to wonder if Dad would have been proud of me if he could see what I really was. If he had, when he was alive.

I felt the crackle of Kakashi's chakra long before he actually got close enough to see, in the dark. It made sense that he'd be the first one there, though being anal about mission start times and stuff was kind of missing the point of some of the shinobi regulations.

Ninja life was a long, long string of improvisations, panic attacks, stabbing, and maybe getting away alive.

I put my hand against the cool stone, tracing Dad's name slowly. My reflection wasn't clear in the dim light, but I thought I could see a little of him in the way my mouth was always a little downturned and the way my hair spiked like crazy while it was short.

Dad hadn't managed to make it, but…I'd do my best to make sure I never had to choose between giving my all and coming home. I had to, didn't I?

"Hey, Kakashi." I said quietly, not turning to greet him.

"You're early for once." Kakashi said in a flat tone, walking up beside me.

I gave him a sidelong look. He wasn't looking at me, but at the stone.

_Sakumo Hatake will never be remembered here._

The Stone was for heroes who died in the line of duty. Most of the time, we'd never recover the body and any funeral was held with the monument and a photograph. If the timeline went the way it had "originally," the Hokage and Sensei would end up as names under my fingers. So would Iruka's parents, and Kushina (who I had yet to meet), and Rin, and hundreds of people I'd _never_ meet. Obito would have his name here, too, but survive and twist into something horrible.

Sakumo Hatake was a goddamn hero, and yet at this time, in this place, he was _nothing_.

Spending too much time around the Memorial Stone was probably bad for my continued mental health, honestly. I knew it wouldn't do Kakashi any favors later.

So, I tore my eyes from the granite and handed Kakashi an apple.

Our camaraderie was based on an awful lot of meaningful silence.

At least, I think so.

Sensei and Obito showed up eventually, in that order. I threw an apple at each of them as they appeared, and we got to eat together. We didn't talk all that much—all of us seemed to be spending our time regaining our equilibrium after the mission—but it was kind of nice, all the same. Obito and Kakashi didn't fight over anything—though they weren't really talking to each other either—and Sensei and I got really into a game of I Spy after a while, with Obito joining in and making me think that Uchiha clan members had freaky night vision in addition to normal vision and even through orange goggles.

I hoped it wouldn't take another disaster of a mission for us to be a real team.

* * *

**A/N:** Working all closing shifts? It's a terrible thing and should not be attempted while also doing other stuff.

Also, thanks for all of the well-wishes and kind thoughts. You're all wonderful. :)

Review responses:

Guest (1): Thanks!

Guest (2): Yeah, four years isn't really that much time, is it?

xVentressx: Yeah, Kei hopes she'll be able to change stuff around, but there are limits. Also, Yamaguchi-sensei and Minato-sensei are...just generally opposed. Helps/Doesn't help that Yamaguchi-sensei is basically Gregory House-lite.


	28. On the Fast Track

Honestly, most of the next few months were basically a gigantic blur. We squabbled less frequently, we trained a lot more, and we went through a bunch of missions. None of our later C-ranks were turned into unmitigated disasters, though we toed that line a couple of times and we got more rank upgrades over time. While Sensei didn't say much about it, I could see a line of tension in his back and a certain twitchiness in his movements that told me, at least, that he was more worried than he let on about the war. I was pretty sure that Sensei wasn't _supposed_ to be handling the bulk of the enemy combatants for a C-ranked mission.

About the only thing that changed for me over that time period, at least in terms of physical ones, was that I had longer hair and my jacket had full-length sleeves. I was also about two centimeters taller and a kilo heavier, which made me suspect that I was going to hit my full size before the boys did. In my old life, it had taken until I was thirteen or fourteen to be essentially finished growing, and I'd been somewhat taller than average. I had no idea how tall I could get, here—mainly because my parents were completely different and I wasn't completely sure if Dad had been really tall. Being nine didn't give me much in the way of perspective.

Obito, meanwhile, had also ditched his short-sleeved black jacket for one with sleeves long enough for thumb-holes and sturdy metal hand guards for the backs of his hands. He'd also gotten around to tying the standard dark blue shinobi pants down with bandages, like nearly every other boy did, and he might have been a little taller than he'd been at graduation.

Kakashi had invested in sleeves, too, though the shuriken-patterned scarf was a bit over the top. I couldn't help but think it was about time—he actually looked more like a boy, now, even if he was practically swimming in his jacket, despite the ninja mesh undershirt. I kind of wondered about the weird trailing half-skirt thingy, though I think I'd seen something similar on Neji when the guy had been promoted to jōnin once upon a time.

One of these days, though, I was going to find out where my teammates bought shoes and go there instead. I could only find the generic ugly shinobi sandals, while Kakashi's looked like a pair of heels I'd probably owned in my old life. Minus the heel bit.

But hey, at least Obito and I were getting better at that whole sync-fighting thing. We weren't perfect, but we were learning and conversations with Kakashi had stopped degenerating into fistfights. I think we'd learn to compensate for our respective growth rates essentially as we went, and maybe all three of us could start becoming an actual working team.

And maybe pigs would fly.

It was after one of those mostly-interchangeable winter training days that Sensei, once again, decided to celebrate our success.

I think Kakashi was starting to learn to hate us and Sensei's indulgence of us and everything else ever.

Sensei brought his hands together in a loud clap, signaling the end of the day's attempt to give Kakashi third-degree burns. He grinned and said, "You're all improving by leaps and bounds. I'd say this calls for ramen. We'll be paid by the end of today for our last mission and it's a couple of zeroes more than we've been getting lately." Sensei said with a smile. "So, everyone know what they want? I can buy this time."

Our last mission had been a bit of a clusterfuck. I mean, none of us kids had been in all that much danger, but any mission where Sensei had to solo a pair of enemy jōnin was the kind of mission that require serious decompression after.

Also, Obito had been getting frustrated with his lack of progress—mostly in the speed department—and with no Shadow Clone workaround I was kind of at a loss as to how to make more headway.

"I'll go with beef this time." I said instantly. I don't know how I'd ended up with shrimp last time but I sure as hell wasn't repeating that mistake. My brain insisted on making a series of connections that went basically like this: a shrimp is an arthropod, which is the same phylum as bugs, crabs, spiders, and lobsters (and I knew that several of the named categories had closer relationships to one or the others, but I didn't care). I had a thing against bugs. Or anything with a texture that was anything like that of a bug.

I think if I went on vacation in the Land of Waves, Rivers, Water, or Rice Paddies, I would starve to death.

Not to mention possible Death by Aburame For Being a Bug Hater.

"Aw, but shrimp was good too," said Obito, who had ended up with my order since I was busy being picky as only a child could be, then.

"Then you can have it." I said. "But I'm not getting it again."

Shrimp is my nemesis.

I could practically _hear _Kakashi rolling his eyes.

Sensei looked up at the sky, then at the shadows of the buildings nearby. "I think it's about lunch time now, actually. If I remember right, there's a friend of mine who ought to be around Ichiraku right about…"

"Hey, Minato!"

The "friend" in question was a kunoichi Sensei's age with crimson hair streaming out behind her like a flag from the top of her head, and a grin that threatened to crack her face in half. She was wearing a short-sleeved variant of the Konoha uniform, with the more feminine (meaning skintight) pants available for mix-and-match. She had a hitai-tate tied across her forehead, above a pair of deep violet eyes, with two long side-locks of red hair in front of her ears. And she was moving at top speed.

Kakashi's chakra was suddenly directly behind me, and then I was flying forward because he'd shoved me square between my shoulder blades. I was almost instantly swept up into a crushing bear hug that had probably been meant for the unrepentant coward behind me.

It didn't save him, by the way. It might have bought him like, thirty seconds, and he wasn't allowed to run.

"Minato, how could you hide your cute little students from me?" Kushina Uzumaki—seriously, who else_ could_ she be?—shouted, one finger wagging under Sensei's nose. I was swinging from her other arm like a rather large plush toy, both because I was kind of running out of air and because resistance was futile. "I demand reparations in the form of ramen and foot massages!"

Okay, getting _dizzy_.

"Kei's turning blue, you know!" Obito said loudly.

Oooh, pretty colors.

Kushina promptly dropped me. On Sensei.

Okay, so she kind of threw me in his face. Details, details.

Anyway, right after Sensei caught me and turned me upright again, she rounded on Obito and I was pretty sure Obito went almost a whole step backward when he flinched away from her.

She followed, and pinched his cheeks once he was in grabbing range. Obito squeaked, too.

"So you're Obito! Minato told me that one of his students was an Uchiha, but I can kind of see the resemblance now that we've actually met," she said sagely. "You look a bit like Mikoto, though she's a kunoichi and prettier and doesn't get out often enough even if she's going to be a jōnin _sometime_."

Bwuh?

"And you don't look like Fugaku because he has a funny face and huge stress lines and you don't." Kushina went on. "Who are your parents, again? I've met pretty much the whole clan at this point even if I'm terrible with names sometimes."

I wasn't entirely sure Kushina stopped to breathe at all during that rambling mess of a statement.

"This, by the way, is Kushina Uzumaki." Sensei said over the top of my head.

"Oh, I never did introduce myself to you two, did I? Whoops." She let go of Obito, who scrambled behind Sensei and me for safety. "Kushina Uzumaki, chūnin of Konohagakure! People also call me the Bloody Red Habanero when they think I'm not listening, though."

"Uh." I said.

But Kushina's attention was already off on an _adventure_.

"Kakashi-chan, what are you doing all the way over there?"

I could practically see his expression morph into the perfect example of a nonverbal "oh shit" in the history of this lifetime. I say "practically" because, technically, I still couldn't see half his face.

Eh. It was a riddle for another time. And maybe adulthood and alcohol and stuff.

And the next thing I knew, Kushina had Kakashi in a bear hug.

I was starting to realize that Sensei's tendency to manhandle us kids had to have come from _somewhere_. I just hadn't realized that it might have been his girlfriend.

Then again, Jiraiya doing the same thing would have ended in a sexual harassment suit or something. Jiraiya was like thirty-seven or something close to that number, while Sensei was still a teenager.

"Anyway, is the plan still to get ramen?" Sensei asked, finally setting me back on the ground. I promptly hid behind him with Obito, leaving Kakashi to his fate.

Some teammates _we_ were.

Actually…

Since Kushina was apparently ignoring Sensei in favor of giving Kakashi the Lennie treatment (_Of Mice and Men_, 1937), I squeaked, "Uh, Kushina-san?"

"Hm?" Kakashi was looking distinctly like a pissed-off owl—though his hairstyle made it a bit hard to tell, sometimes—but Kushina's smile was kind of…intimidating, over the top of his head. Basically, if I was given the choice of being glared at by a tiny chūnin or being given a mischievous smile by Kushina Uzumaki, I'd choose to invoke Kakashi's wrath instead.

But hey, what were frenemies for?

"I think we're all getting hungry…" I said.

Obito's stomach gave an obliging grumble. He winced.

"Oh? Sure, we can go get ramen." Kushina said, as though she wasn't still squishing Kakashi like a plush toy.

She let go of him eventually. When we all sat down for ramen, all of us kids were planning on sitting together on the opposite side of Sensei from Kushina, just to be sure we had some kind of barrier. We didn't exactly talk about it, but the intention was there and we'd planned for that, sort of. Or at least we tried to—Sensei grabbed the end seat and Kushina took the one next to that, leaving the three of us to have a quick Rock-Paper-Scissors duel over who got to sit furthest away.

Kakashi won the first round—which I attributed to the constant duels with Gai—and Obito beat me, which meant that I had to sit next to Kushina and be the sacrificial lamb to her affections.

I barely remembered what to order in the face of her overbearing personality.

"So, you're Keisuke-chan, right?" Kushina asked, slinging an arm around my skinny shoulders.

"R-right, Kushina-san." I didn't even really want to correct her when it came to my name.

"I've never seen you this quiet before, Kei-kun. Are you feeling all right?" Sensei asked from Kushina's other side, looking curious.

The Dreamer said dryly, **This is our submissive state. It helps us not get eaten by bigger and badder things.**

Speaking of bigger and badder, as long as I was sitting this close to Kushina and not being occupied with the possibility of imminent suffocation, _I could sense the Nine-Tailed Fox_.There was no bigger and badder (chakra construct/beast/person/individual)…_thing_ in the world at the time.

And no, I couldn't sense it as _well_ as I might have if it—Kurama—had been actively throwing its weight around, but there was definitely an undercurrent of _this thing wouldn't even have to chew to eat me _and _danger danger DANGER._

All wrapped into the five-foot-something frame of a woman who, if she killed me, would probably do it by accident.

"I'm fine, Sensei." I forced out.

"Kei-kun…" Sensei said warningly, but Kushina cut him off, saying, "If he says he's fine, let him be. You don't need to hover, Minato."

Actually, yeah, he kinda did. The thing with raising superpowered ninjas was that you kinda had to _get_ them to that point and not get anyone killed in the meantime. Well, anyone you gave a shit about, anyway.

Also…

"Kushina-san? I'm a girl."

"I thought I told you about this." Sensei remarked into the sudden silence.

Kushina, for her part, seemed to have finally discovered a social _faux pas_ she actually cared about. She blushed, embarrassed, and mumbled, "I was a little distracted."

**Too distracted to notice that we're a little girl?**

I guess most kunoichi wore skirts at my age.

"It's okay. Just about everyone makes that mistake." I said reassuringly, as Obito coughed and Kakashi looked pointedly away.

"Still." She patted me on the head, which was considerably less suffocating than just about anything else she'd done. "Anyway, your birthday is July tenth, right?"

Um. Yes. It's the same day every year and we'd _just_ about gotten to Sensei's birthday (January something or other) without actually discussing birthdays once. I was planning something for Obito's, which was the month after, even if I had no goddamn idea what.

I nodded.

"Then we're birthday buddies! I mean, sure, you don't know me all that well yet, but I think you're adorable and it's always fun to celebrate with more people."

Okay…personally, I would probably be happier if I could just get Obito and Rin and Kakashi all in the same room with Hayate and Mom and blow out candles and then go back to training, without any unannounced fights or catfights or Mom hitting people with a shinai. Partying with Kushina seemed like an unspeakably _exciting_ idea.

And at this time, in this place, "visions" weren't much of a guarantee that someone would live to celebrate their next birthday anyway. It was kind of why shinobi stopped caring after age fifteen or so.

Kushina is an extrovert.

I am not. At all. I scored a _thirty _on introversion in my last attempt at Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, at least back when I'd been an adult and had a non-ninja job and stuff. Introversion does not generally come any more blatant.

The only reason I kept hanging out with people in my free time was because I was scared of what would happen if I _didn't._

I was all too aware of how short our lives could be.

"Kushina, I think they might be a little young for that." Sensei pointed out.

"Well not _now_, obviously, but I can get like, a cake and stuff."

"My—er, our—birthday isn't for seven months, though." I said.

"Then we can practice on everyone else who has one in between, obviously!"

I think Obito might have winced again.

"Don't get too ahead of yourself." Sensei said.

"Says the guy whose birthday is next." Kushina said, pouting.

Obito heaved a sigh of relief.

Sensei gave her an amused look. "Not what I meant. It's just that…well, I was planning on entering them in the Konoha Chūnin Exams this month."

Wait.

No.

Slow down, hit rewind. What the _fuck_?

The Dreamer squeaked, **_What?_**

_How did I not know about the Chūnin Exams?!_

"Really, Sensei? You think we're ready?" Obito was almost shaking from excitement. His eyes were _huge_.

He nodded.

"YES! Kei, we're going to be chūnin by this time next month!"

"Who's going to be our third teammate?" I asked, because even Obito's normally-contagious exuberance wasn't making much of a dent in my attitude. "Kakashi can't be—he's been promoted for longer than we've been shinobi. It would be unfair to the other teams."

"Oh, right! Hey, that means I don't have to deal with you for a month!"

_Whap._

"Shut up, you useless idiot."

"Why'd you hit me, you bastard?!"

To me, Sensei replied, "Oh, you'll see. I've been in talks with another jōnin sensei for a while and we'll be doing drills with your temporary teammate in the next couple of weeks."

…Oookay.

On one hand, I was pretty sure that I could come up with something to pass, if the exams were anything like they'd been in the future (and wasn't that just a mess of tenses). On the other, _we weren't ready_. My chakra capacity was still shitty and Obito had consistently failed our shuriken and kunai throwing tests and we'd only been shinobi for about five months…

This was going to _suck_.

And then the next day…

"Obito! Kei-senpai!" Rin called, running up to us in Training Ground Three, "We're going to be taking the Chūnin Exams together!"

Funnily enough, I wasn't quite so worried anymore.

* * *

**A/N:** Can I just say that this next arc is going to be a pain?

Anyway I'll get to review responses later tonight, so keep an eye out! :D


	29. The CliffsNotes Version

A full, international Chūnin Exam would have been a hilariously bad idea given the current state of affairs between the various elemental nations. If the Exams are supposed to be a substitute for war, and we were kinda _at_ war and needed a whole lot of bodies to throw at the enemy…well. Suffice to say that if the "canon" Exams that Naruto and his fellow Konoha Twelve went through was the full and proper version someone ought to attend after nearly thirteen years of peace (though no Rock teams attended, because they suck and hate us), Team Minato/Yamaguchi/Awesomeness was taking the abridged version.

At least, that was what Sensei had told us. I don't think he really knew what that entailed, anyway.

Mom's reaction to the news was pretty straightforward.

"This is a terrible idea." Mom said, over dinner. Hayate was at Iruka's house with Yūgao, and had at least given me a quick hug before taking off. It was kind of weird to see him hanging out with other people, but I trusted the Umino family and wasn't all that worried. He had to grow up sometime, right?

"I know." I grumbled, propping my head up in my left hand. "But if I don't enter Obito's never going to forgive me."

"It'd be difficult to forgive anyone if you all die." Mom countered, obviously annoyed.

"Does it help any that it's Konoha-only?" I asked. Sensei had told me that much, at least. While at war, Konoha didn't have time to vet its supposed allies.

"Marginally. But none of you are old enough to have gone through sufficient levels of survival training to work well in the training ground most Konoha Chūnin Exams use." Mom said, frowning over the top of her clasped hands. "What is Namikaze-san _thinking_?"

I had an idea.

"I think that _he_ thinks we can do it." I said, and then I paused to slurp up more soba. Training worked up an appetite, but talking about the possibly drastically shortened future countered it. As a result, I wasn't really any more hungry than normal, but I needed a second to articulate my thoughts. "Maybe Kakashi spoiled him—I know that he passed on his first attempt when he was six."

"Kakashi Hatake is a once-in-a-generation shinobi." Mom replied. "Not even the Legendary Sannin were promoted so quickly, and everyone knows it."

Yeah, that was the gist of it.

She sighed. "And yet…from what I've heard from you and what I've seen, it isn't _enough_."

I wasn't entirely sure if she meant that our team wasn't enough to take on the Exam—which I happened to agree with—or that Kakashi wasn't going to be able to carry the burden of being a shinobi on the front lines if us genin were counting on him. Of course, it could have been any number of other things, but those were the relevant thoughts in _my_ head.

We were _so_ dead.

Speaking of deadness, I was contemplating my team's prospects as I walked to Training Ground Three a while later. I had my paperwork rolled into a tightly bound scroll, which I'd stuck in my kunai pouch. I hadn't even really taken much of a look at it since Sensei had given it to me. It brought up a lot of horrible thoughts about the myriad ways we could manage to die before we turned ten, and I didn't really need any more.

"Oi, Pint-Sized Prophet. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Da-da-da-da, Rikuto Tetsuyama of the Chinatsugumi makes his grand reappearance!

It might have been a bit more impressive if he wasn't carrying a pair of twin babies in slings, with one infant on his back and the other across his chest. Zakuro was walking next to him, looking distinctly amused even at my twitch of discomfort at being cornered, even if we were in the middle of a crowded street.

I did have a couple of things to ask them, though. Such as, in no particular order, what their kids' names were, where the nickname had come from, when they were planning on leaving, and if they were planning on leaving at all now that their kids had been born.

So I did. All at once, and in one breath.

Not my finest moment.

"Miyu and Kazuki, because you are one, in about a month, and no." Rikuto answered, smirking.

_Wiseass_.

**Hey, you did write him.**

_That was before I had to deal with him._

"I heard the Chūnin Exams were going to be in a week or so, and I asked if we could stay for a bit." Zakuro said, grinning. "I hope you make it to the finals so we can watch!"

Yeah, I was starting to hope I _didn't_.

On one hand: promotions.

On the other: promotions, gladiator matches, and yet more missions Team Minato's current setup barely allowed for, with a much higher chance of death. All before hitting puberty.

Bluh.

Rikuto gave me a funny look. "What's the matter?"

"A lot, but not anything you can fix." I said. "I'm going to train."

Rikuto made a contemplative noise. "Well, how about I trade you something? A bit of information, in exchange for some advice."

I looked at him. Did he seriously believe I was a precog?

"Half-Pint, I've been getting a weird feeling from you since we met, and I'm sure Chi-chan gave you the short version for easy understanding." Rikuto said in a voice pitched to be ignored by any civilians. I felt a subtle shift in Zakuro's chakra and knew that no one would notice us.

I could be dead in the street in half a blink and only a Hyūga would even spot my corpse.

Cheery thought.

"But frankly, I just get the feeling that you know way more than you're saying." Rikuto said. When I said nothing in response, he added, "Take it from an old spy, kid. I'll have a couple more tidbits for you if you do."

Well…I could tell him a couple of things that wouldn't compromise the village.

I looked at the twins. One of them—I couldn't even tell which was which, honestly, since babies are pretty much the same at that age, barring a significant anatomical difference—opened an eye and I saw teal. "I can't be certain, but…"

**Oh, it's those two.**

I looked Rikuto square in the eye. "How many people can hear us?"

"None!" Zakuro said cheerfully.

_Good._

"Don't trust Orochimaru of the Sannin at all." I said bluntly. "The Chinatsugumi has so many kekkei genkai users that he won't be able to resist going after you. His primary ambition may involve the Sharingan, but he's got so many irons in the fire that he could build a wrought-iron fence."

Rikuto and Zakuro paused, exchanging glances.

"I take it you haven't mentioned this to your sensei or anyone else." Rikuto said slowly, but he didn't sound skeptical.

_Old spy indeed_. Jiraiya was maybe ten years older, and _he_ wasn't presumed dead.

I'd checked Sensei's Bingo Book. Rikuto Tetsuyama, also known as the Stoneshaper during the Second Shinobi World War. He wasn't quite old enough to be a contemporary to the likes of the Sannin or the White Fang, but he'd been a rising star. And then he'd quit the battlefield, taking out thirty Sand ninjas in a suicide mission that had turned out not to be, I guess. Not bad for someone who had to have been about Sensei's age then.

"Who'd believe me?" I asked rhetorically. "The Legendary Sannin are practically the Founders for the new generation, and I don't have any evidence other than a lot of disturbing dreams."

"Hm. Actually, it meshes with a few rumors out of the Land of Rice Fields." Rikuto said mildly. "I think I'll have to put out some feelers, but I could easily come up with something for Chi-chan's sake."

…Okay then.

"Anything else you're dying to tell us?" Rikuto asked.

"…Keep an eye on Hidden Cloud." I said. "They tried to kidnap a Konoha kunoichi less than five years ago for her chakra, and they have their eye on the Byakugan. I can only guess that they'd be after any kekkei genkai they can grab." What else, what else… "Don't trust Danzō Shimura either—he might be an elder, and from a big-name clan, but he's even more twisted than Orochimaru in some ways. He has a thing for traumatized orphans and not a lot of restraint in avoiding _making _them orphans. And stay safe. You're the only people I've told this stuff to, so I hope you'll be able to keep yourselves alive to act on it."

Rikuto patted me on the head.

Apparently I just attracted people who did.

"You haven't seen how stubbornly people can cling to life until you've met a missing-nin, Half-Pint." Rikuto said. "And here's my advice to you: Nothing in this exam is worth dying over. You keep yourself alive, too."

"Also, if you see Akira-chan," Zakuro put in, "try to remind him that spending time with his cousin is fine, but Chi-chan gets lonely at night."

Ahahaha, _no_.

"So, Kushina-san found Akira-san?" I asked.

"Within a week. It was kind of disturbing, really."

And as though on cue, Kushina rocketed by while dragging Akira by one arm. I think I caught something about "cool jutsu" before they were out of hearing range, with Sensei and Chinatsu determinedly chasing after them. They were all gone in a cloud of dust in less than four seconds.

"This is one crazy village." Rikuto said mildly. "I like it here."

Since Sensei was going to be busy for a while, I went to go see what Obito and Rin were up to.

It turned out that the answer was "not a lot."

Obito was skipping rocks, all while rapidly chattering about whatever topic came to mind, while Rin humored him. If they weren't training, that meant that Sensei had either already dismissed them or he'd never gotten around to telling them which drills to run today, what with Kushina being the world's biggest distraction and mobile dust devil.

Or something.

"Hey, can I cut in for a second?" I asked.

"What, are you gonna run away after?" Obito asked, and the rock he'd thrown shot across the water, bouncing a cheerful four times. "Yes! New personal best."

Simple feats of coordination: Used to impress girls since time immemorial.

"Yeah, I just have a couple things and then I'm gonna go bug someone else for a bit." I said. I decided not to bother about the paperwork, then. What would happen, would happen. No use getting my team worked up over it.

"What things?" Rin asked, standing up.

"Oh, just a couple of training ideas."

I hadn't _just_ been sitting on my ass worrying, after all.

My idea was simple, though that didn't really mean much for its utility. It's just that we only had so many options at our age and stamina and we'd never run full combat drills without a target.

But hey, why not?

Obito hadn't figured out the trick to water walking just yet, while Rin and I had to learn enough chakra control bullshit to figure it out ourselves anyway. So while Rin and I walked out onto the river, Obito stood back and stretched his fingers, waiting.

Anyway, for my plan, we needed a bit of flexibility and a lot of practice. The idea was that, since Obito was the only one of us who knew any ranged combat jutsu, he'd try to box our enemy in and keep them from maneuvering out of my range. I was the best close combat fighter we had—given that Kakashi had been essentially excluded from the roster for this month—and had the longest reach inside of that category with my kodachi. Rin, though she was good at dodging and smarter than Obito, didn't really have much to her arsenal other than utility jutsu. She would need to stay out of the line of fire entirely.

So, we were learning—or making ourselves learn—the art of dodging fireballs. I knew it could be done, since Obito's signature Grand Fireball was pretty much useless against faster opponents. It was just a matter of getting used to his timing.

And then using Rin's and my skills to destroy anyone who was dumb enough to think that fire was all we had to fight with. Jutsu weren't the end-all of lethal tools in a shinobi's arsenal, even if they were a pretty good place to start.

We ended up stopping after I dodged a little too late and the end of my fledgling ponytail caught fire. I cut the chakra to my feet and ended up getting dunked, but at least I wasn't on fire anymore.

I guess I was due for a haircut anyway.

"You aren't seriously planning to use that in a fight." Kakashi said as I emerged from the water, shaking myself off like a dog. I mean, it wasn't effective at all, but then I started wringing out my hitai-ate bandanna and decided I didn't care anyway.

"It's a work in progress." I said, and then I started shaking out the burned bits of hair with my fingers. Blackened, nasty-smelling fragments fell out. Ugh.

Squelching water out of my sandals before taking them off, I made my way back to the bank and proceeded to take off my jacket, my T-shirt, and all of my weapon pouches (including my kodachi). That left me in pants, aesthetic bandages, and an undershirt.

Then I pulled out a kunai and started trimming my burned hair. It didn't take all that long, really.

"Kei, are you okay?!" Obito shouted, running over. Rin was at his heels, and whipped around to place a glowing green hand against the back of my neck to heal me. I could probably have done it myself, but my brain was running on autopilot.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. I'm fine." I said. "The water took care of the fiery bit and the fire chakra limits the heat bloom from the fireballs. I shouldn't get anything worse than nasty sunburn." I turned. "And thanks, Rin-chan."

"No problem, Kei-senpai." Rin replied. "Though I guess this means I should stock up on burn medication…"

I shrugged, as Obito turned red.

I was taking things a bit too calmly.

**What, am I ****_not_**** supposed to be keeping you from panicking unnecessarily? Sheesh. That's gratitude for you.**

_I'll be fine, now. The shock's over._

Also, where the fuck had Kakashi come from?

**When a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very, very much…**

I took that as a hint to just ignore her.

"Anyway, how've you been?" I asked, since I hadn't seen him for about two days and that was kind of a record since Team Minato had been formed. And also because some retail shit you seriously can't deprogram. It's freaky.

"Fine."

**Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.**

Do they make Adderall for split personalities?

"In that case, Sparky, do you have any pointers for us blundering amateurs? Preferably the easily-applied type of thing that means we don't die."

Kakashi gave me a baleful glare.

Then…

"It'd be a pain to break in new genin."

Hahaha, predictable dickery! I'm onto you, Kakashi Hatake!

He did, in fact, give us a couple of very useful tips. Most of them didn't actually have much to do with our technique (though he criticized that too), and more to do with the Exams in general and survival strategies. Obito bristled the whole time through, while Rin took mental notes and I continued to dry off, listening in a sort of meditation.

And then Sensei interrupted us. Yay, drill time.

You'll just have to see what we came up with _later_.

Mwahaha.

* * *

**A/N:** AND AFTER THIS I AM GOING TO BE _GONE_.

I have a family vacation thing starting tomorrow, and I'll be without access to a computer for about a week and a half. I promise that I'll continue brainstorming and coming up with ideas and bouncing them off my beta and...yeah.

See you in a while!


	30. Bring It On!

In hindsight, it might have been a better idea just to take my entry form for the Chūnin Exam that year and burn it.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, after all.

Anyway, the day of the Exam dawned bright and horrendously early. I had breakfast with Mom and with Hayate, before he went off to school, and crammed all of my rations and tools into a special storage scroll Sensei had given me the night before, all tucked inside a backpack. All I needed to do, if I wanted my stuff back, would be to drip blood on the central seal while using chakra to activate it, somewhat like using a summoning contract.

"I know I said that it's a Konoha-only Exam…but try to keep your head on straight." Sensei had told me. "After the last try we had at an international version, I don't think you can be too careful of the others."

Technically, it'd only been tried a few times, and never between the same two nations. The attempts had…not ended well. Assassinations and general infiltration of enemy spies everywhere anyone looked.

I guess it _would_ take the shock of the Third Shinobi World War, in total, to get everyone to sit down and shut up for a while. Shinobi as a social class tend to be paranoid bastards, and cramming a lot of paranoid people in a small space and offering any confirmation for any of the suspicions…

Yeah, I guess the Third Shinobi World War would be a little like World War One. We might (not) get twenty years of armistice for this one, though.

Personally, I would have liked to know how to make my own storage scrolls. Sensei, being one of like three Sealing masters in the village, could make them pretty much anytime he sat down with enough paper and ink, but none of us genin could, and neither could Kakashi as far as I could tell. Oh, I knew that he'd pick up something of the art later, like he seemed to do with everything (like the Rasengan, specifically), but that didn't actually help us at the moment and I thought I could at least be okay at it. Even if I never learned to use them on the fly, like Sensei did.

Dad had known how to create his own explosives, after all. He hadn't really gotten me started on much more than just the calligraphy and a couple of basic forms before he died, leaving me without the tools or experience necessary to create my own seals just yet, but it was a thought.

A thought involving the equivalent of the part where, in _Jaws_, a guy shoots a scuba tank and the pressurized air and metal and stuff blows the shark in half, anyway.

After swinging by the Uchiha district to pick Obito up from his parents' house, entirely avoiding them in the process (and I swear I still didn't know what his dad even looked like, then), we both grabbed Rin before making our way to the administrative building. There were about ten of them around the Hokage's Office/Academy/Mission Assignment Building mishmash of a structure, and no one seemed to find any reason to taunt the new prospective chūnin candidates.

I guess Kotetsu and Izumo were unique cases.

Granted, in the "present," they were probably a year or two younger than my team, and therefore not much of a factor, but their genjutsu came to mind nonetheless.

I kind of wanted to know if that was just a thing for when there were foreign examinees or standard practice.

I cast my senses out as we approached the limits of my range (which was, depending on chakra masking or expression rates and wavelengths, about a hundred meters when in "active mode"), but I didn't feel any active chakra usage. Well, that's inaccurate, but genjutsu felt very distinctly clingy, and most of what I could feel was mostly like simmering water—it was probably the other examinees' chakra agitated from nerves. I couldn't get a lock on their location, mainly because I was too distracted by my own agitation.

"Nervous?" Obito piped up, making me glance at him. He was smiling, though it wasn't quite reaching his eyes.

"Terrified." I said bluntly.

The thing about kids is that they often rise to meet your expectations. They're not often genuinely stupid; they just haven't lived as long as adults have. Ignorant, rather.

Now, I'll grant you that Obito has never been the sharpest kunai in the holster, but he's not incapable of learning. He'd dealt with my intermittent freakouts long enough to get a handle on the pattern.

"What for?" Obito asked, rather than jumping down my throat about my lack of confidence in his or Rin's skills.

"I'm a little nervous too, Obito." Rin admitted. "We must be some of the youngest genin to make the attempt."

"It's not the young part that bothers me." I said. "It's the fact that we've only been genin for five months."

I mean, shit, Kakashi at least waited for six with his genin team, later.

…Though that was due more to scheduling problems than anything.

"We have each other, though. That has to count for something." Obito said, "And anyway, the exams are all Konoha genin only, so there's nothing to worry about."

**It's not as though Konoha shinobi have major grudges against each other, right?** The Dreamer commented sarcastically. **I suppose Neji almost killed Hinata by ****_accident_****.**

I could actually think of a few people I'd like to get my hands on, but this just seemed…off. I mean, I'd like to see how far I could push Matsumaru Uchiha, for one, but solving my personal issues with someone who was nominally a comrade by punching them stupid just didn't seem like the right thing to do. Call me crazy, but I was okay with fighting _enemies_. They were usually clearly indicated, what with the attempted murder right off the bat. But fighting fellow Leaf shinobi over something as trivial as a promotion…

The Dreamer asked, **What will happen if you're matched up against Rin or Obito in the finals?**

_…Shit._ I didn't know.

_I'll have to get far enough for that to even be a problem, first_. I replied, _Most teams didn't even make it that far_.

Seemed a little shallow to me, though. I was putting off the future in case it didn't actually come around, but the possibility remained. If our team made it to the finals intact—though, granted, we'd have to survive the gauntlet of other genin first—we might end up squaring off against each other. I couldn't say for sure how that would go, only that it would be difficult to put on a show with my stomach twisting in guilt and _I should not be doing this_.

**What about a sacrifice play?**

Also known as the other Big Problem.

I had a theory about the First Exam, even if I didn't particularly want to voice it then, but the looming shadow of the Kannabi Bridge mission was still there, casting reality in a strange and terrible darkness. But…if it came down to one of us…

"I think we need to have a leader, before we go in." Rin said as we approached, quietly. "So we don't argue about what to do."

"Like Sensei?" Obito asked.

"Or Akihito-shishō." Rin agreed. "Just to keep us pointed the right way."

_This is going somewhere weird._

"Usually we either argue or Sensei just kinda leads us onward." I pointed out. "Sometimes Kakashi does, but that doesn't happen often and we complain when it does."

Well, mostly Obito did.

"Still, it would make things simpler." Rin said.

Jeez, Rin must have hated leading more than I did. I usually just went with whoever had the strongest personality, since most of what we dealt with as genin was low-risk enough to allow it. Thinking, management, and social skills didn't necessarily factor into it. It was easier than making all the decisions and…

Obito frowned in thought.

Then he and Rin exchanged a look.

I had a sudden sinking feeling.

"No." I said instantly.

"Come on, Kei! You can do this!" Obito wheedled.

"You're putting your lives in my hands!" I hissed back, aware that we were still in the street and could be easily overheard. "That's crazy!"

"Who else are we supposed to trust; the other teams?" Rin asked. I snapped my mouth shut so fast my teeth clicked. She had a point, and a look in her eye that was actually pretty scary. Obito probably barely knew that Rin had a core of steel, given that flashback sequence before his Tobi-mask cracked off (another side, another story, and another life). "We'll all be looking out for each other too, but you're just going to call the fights before they start."

"Look, Sensei and—and Kakashi aren't here." Obito said, scowling. It must have stung to admit that Kakashi was better at anything, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. His face relaxed. "I know we haven't been friends for a super-long time, but _you can do this_."

I wondered, in a somewhat distant way, if this was what having Naruto reassure you was like. It felt good, but kind of scary at the same time. Naruto was never _really_ relying on the object of his attention/conversion attempt to save his life. Obito and Rin might be, later.

"…We'll see how it goes." I said, grudgingly. "I really don't want to do it, but…"

Rin and Obito high-fived.

"You suck." I said.

Then we made our way inside the exam building.

I'll say this for Konoha—we know how to make a reception hall. Must be all the wood.

(Yes, this sounds like I'm damning my own hometown's construction ethos with faint praise, but there's a reason the building is important to me. Hang on.)

Honestly, if not for the desks lining one wall, we could have been in my old university's meeting hall. The room was mostly wide open space, with wooden floors and smooth plaster walls and huge windows to let the sun shine in. Probably saved them a load on lighting bills. There was a raised stage to one side, with a wheeled podium for whoever felt like making a speech or taking cover, and the administration had helpfully put signup tables everywhere so there weren't long waiting lines for the Exam. The room was pretty crowded despite that, with genin of every age and their jōnin sensei as well, and there was a steady roar of voices that echoed off the walls and high ceilings.

But if you looked closely, you'd see something a little less like a parent-teacher conference and something a little more like what it _actually_ was. The windows had a strange tint to them that I was pretty sure meant shatterproof—or at least storm/jutsu-proof—glass, and there was a mirror against the base of the stage that might have been one-way. The doors themselves, unlike my auditorium of old, were lined with metal and I could see the faintest glimmer of shinobi wire. The building itself hummed with the chakra of well-maintained genjutsu traps in case of rowdiness.

Just from the entrance, I could see Gai and Ebisu with their teams. Gai was actually one of the shorter kids over there, though Asuma and Kurenai were in the room with their sensei as well. Going by the hair and the senbon, I guessed that Genma was the kid hanging out with Bandage-nose—oh, that was Raidō—on the edge of the stage. Hm. Genma wasn't a chūnin yet, apparently, but Raidō was gonna be one of our proctors, going by flak jacket.

**That kid over there seems to be Aoba Yamashiro. Second goofball on the right and straight on until you hit a wall. And…that guy looks like Ibiki Morino. You know, back when he had hair.**

Instead of focusing on Aoba or Ibiki, I caught a glimpse of a man with red, ringed eyes that matched Kurenai's perfectly, though I was pretty sure I wasn't _supposed _to see him. There was the shimmer of a genjutsu around him, but my chakra sense and a silent _kai_ had dislodged it. Maybe he was gonna be a proctor?

The Dreamer commented, **This is an auspicious time****_._**

_Nice of fate to get all our minor players in one place like that. _

Interestingly, it was a lot less hostile than I expected. While granted, this exam was pretty insular and I could name about a fifth of the participants on my own, I was still surprised to find that no one seemed to care all that much that rookies were entering the exam this time around. Actually, some of the looks I got from the other teams were downright respectful, which is something I am absolutely sure I could not have done anything to _earn_ in the timeframe I had been a genin.

"Ah, Keisuke-san! Obito-san, Rin-san! I see that you have decided to join our most youthful exam event!" Gai shouted, making his way across the room with the kind of speed I doubted Kakashi could match.

"Hi again, Gai-san. It's been a while." I said, stepping forward.

"Far too long!" Gai agreed enthusiastically, taking my offered hand and shaking it every bit as hard as he did the first time we met. I wasn't gonna have feeling in my fingers soon enough.

"Oh, you're Maito Gai?" Rin frowned suddenly. "You're a terrible flight risk at the hospital! The doctors and nurses complain that you always break out to go train more."

"The power of youth cannot be contained by four square walls!"

"Or restraints, apparently." I muttered under my breath.

Obito frowned. "Say, Gai, how many times have you taken the exams?"

"Only once, now!" Gai said brightly. "I have no doubt that we shall triumph as only those with true determination can."

Well, I could honestly say that a lack of determination wasn't going to mean much. In that giving up seemed more and more attractive the longer I thought of it, and that I was _all kinds _of dead the second I said as much. At least Gai was distracting.

I managed to spot Ebisu coming before he poked Gai in the shoulder.

Ebisu had grown up in the previous eight years. He was taller, obviously, and his hair was all swept out to one side like a J-rocker or an anime character. His cheekbones were just starting to become the jutting monsters they would be once he was grown up (I kid, I kid), and he seemed to have already started wearing the perfectly rounded shades he was known for.

"Gai-kun, if you don't mind…" Ebisu said calmly.

"Hello, Ebisu-san." I said. "Do you remember me?"

He adjusted his glasses with his index and middle finger, sort of like how I used to. "Have we met?"

_Kinda-sorta_. _Same thing with Genma_.

I said, "You're in a picture my mom took of my first birthday. Your mom got me hairbows."

Ebisu's eyebrows rose, along with a faint flush in his cheeks. "Sorry, I still can't recall meeting you before."

"Since you would've been like three, I can see why not." Obito said under his breath.

"Shush, Obito." I said.

Gai had apparently had enough of waiting for Ebisu to get back to what he'd been trying to say before I cut in. "Obito-san, I challenge you!"

Obito blinked. Then, "Bring it!"

At least Gai had to let go of my hand to issue a challenge properly. I was really going to have to stop shaking hands with the guy.

"Oi, Gai, don't go picking on the kids before the fights start up." Genma called out from the stage.

I glanced his way. "Teammate?"

"Unfortunately yes." Ebisu said with a sigh. "Our team's roster has been…shifting, lately."

Shit. Ebisu had managed to convey more than he thought, just with one sentence. Most of the time, genin teams were made up of kids who were around the same age, in order to account for things like differing promotion rates and (lack of) experience. Exceptions tended to be due to either exceptional skill or casualties—sort of the difference between the Sand Siblings and post-Kannabi Team Minato. Ebisu and Gai were close enough—two years difference, basically—but Genma was around thirteen. Maybe twelve. Raidō was probably fifteen, though I didn't know whose team he was on. I had no idea if their original teams had suffered normal injuries, career-ending injuries, or worse.

The oldest likely-genin in the room was a Hyūga girl with long, purplish-bluish dark hair. She looked about sixteen or so, and was one of two major-clan genin around—the other was, well, Obito. I had no idea what team she was on, but I wondered if her team had died or simply been promoted without her.

I wondered if that would happen to our team.

"I'm sorry." I said to Ebisu, empathy making my voice much more emotive than normal.

"It's a part of life." Ebisu said, frowning. "But I accept your apology anyway."

"What are you two talking about?" Obito demanded, even though Gai had him in a loose version of a full nelson.

"Gai-san, let go of Obito!" Rin's hands were glowing—if she wanted to, she could knock Gai silly for at least twenty minutes with a feather-light touch. That chakra was designed solely to incapacitate, though it had a tendency toward friendly fire.

"Give it a rest, Gai." Genma said sharply, but no one listened.

There was a_ crack _of displaced air, and suddenly Sensei was standing to Gai's left. Kakashi was there too, sort of half-hidden behind Sensei, and he looked somewhat peeved. I just wasn't precisely sure why.

"…Well, you've certainly settled in just fine." Sensei said, apropos of nothing.

"Hello, Minato-sensei!" Gai said brightly.

"Hi again, Gai-kun. Mind letting go of Obito before he faints of oxygen deprivation?"

"I will_ not_ faint." Obito argued, but Gai let go anyway. Obito rolled one shoulder, grimacing, and Rin immediately moved to take care of his (superficial) tweaked joints.

"Because blacking out is manlier." I muttered, shaking my head. Oh well. "Anyway, Sensei, Kakashi, are you here to see us off?"

"Obviously." Kakashi said, mostly under his breath.

I raised an eyebrow at him, while Sensei's hand landed on his head. Sensei smiled. "Don't worry, Kei-kun. He's just worried."

I looked at him. He…didn't exactly look worried. More annoyed at being caught out being _possibly_ worried because it would damage his street cred.

**Is that a blush?**

The parallels between Kakashi and Sasuke were looking stronger than ever, then.

"Really." Sensei assured me.

"…Thanks, then. Anyway, are we gonna do this?" I asked.

"Yep." Sensei replied.

"FORM UP, KONOHA GENIN!" someone shouted. Everyone in the room—particularly the older genin and some chūnin, who seemed a little keyed up—jumped. Sensei reached over and turned both Obito and Rin toward the stage manually, while I was already looking in that direction anyway. All around us, heads whipped around to where the red-eyed man was standing, center-stage.

He seemed to have kicked both Raidō and Genma off the stage pretty much just because.

"Welcome to the Chūnin Exams," he said, much quieter now that we were all paying attention. "Some of you may have been here before, whether six months ago or longer. Some of you are new. I am Kōbai Yūhi, and I will be the examiner for the Second Exam of this multi-phase single-elimination event." His red eyes swept the room, searching for weakness. "But first, you must make it past my partner. And most of you will not."

There was a steady buzzing sound, just hovering on the edge of hearing, and I turned my head toward what felt like a hundred thousand tiny chakra signatures grouped around a much larger one—sort of like ants around an anthill, or a termite mound.

And then, out of what seemed like nowhere, there was suddenly an additional special jōnin in the room.

He was taller than Sensei, wearing a high-collared coat that masked the lower half of his face. He had a pair of dark sunglasses over his eyes, and I thought I saw…yep. Those were holes. For the kikai insects. In his face.

Brrrr.

Kōbai Yūhi smirked. "Meet Shibi Aburame, the proctor of the First Exam."

…You know what? _Bring it on_.

Sensei patted my head and said, "Good luck. You'll need it."

**Thanks for the vote of confidence.**

At least we _probably_ wouldn't all die, no matter what the proctors threw at us.

* * *

**A/N:** INCIDENTALLY, vacations without access to the internet are kind of annoying. As are multiple eight-hour shifts.

Also, the fruits of my researching labor:

1. The Exams were only made international after the end of the Third Shinobi World War. Before them, attempts may have been made, but each village dealt only with their own recruits. As a result, the death toll was significantly lower (hence why Obito, who was an amazingly shitty shinobi in canon, passed. Ever). Retcon ahoy.

2. Genma, Gai, and Ebisu were indeed placed on the same team during a flashback in chapter 500 or so. But in order to account for the fact that they all graduated in different years and are up to four years apart in age, we have the situation above.

3. The Aburame, not the Senju, are the fourth noble clan of Konoha. Apparently, you have to actually have a surviving population to be a noble clan. Either that or the Senju intermarried like _crazy_ with other clans and with civilians. Regardless, there are few to no living Senju who go by that name.

4. Yes, that's Kurenai's dad. He really was the proctor of the Second Exam during Obito's first run at it.

And finally, thank you to everyone who has added this story (or me) to their favorites or watchlist, and a _huge_ thank-you to everyone who reviewed! You're all wonderful. :D


	31. Phase One Complete

The thing about the Chūnin Exam is this—it is, ultimately, a test of squad leader aptitude. Chūnin-level shinobi can be trusted to lead groups of genin on C- and the occasional B-ranked mission with minimal loss of life and limb, make tactical decisions on a unit or squadron level, and have an understanding of what to do and how when worst comes to worst on a battlefield. Again, on a limited command level.

In my old world's military parlance, genin were roughly analogous to privates—there were and pretty much always are tons of them, and they weren't specialized yet. Chūnin were sergeants or perhaps lieutenants in major combat operations, usually managing squads of genin or less-experienced chūnin. Specialist or special jōnin were one step up, serving full jōnin in their specialized areas—often, they had roles not tied to the battlefield. Ibiki would grow up to be like that—master interrogator, but somewhat lackluster in open combat. Full jonin could occupy any upper-level command role depending on their experience and aptitude, from captain to major to colonel to general.

And I, a genin of five months, had been made impromptu squad leader—as though all of our superior officers had been killed by a mortar in the right place.

Agh.

"Well, this is gonna be fun." I said, my tone dripping with sarcasm. Obito grinned.

"Please report to the front desk for your seat assignment." Kōbai said. "After you get your number, get to your seat immediately. There will be points deducted for tardiness."

In other words, Obito was screwed.

Everyone else seemed to be getting in line regardless of screwed-ness, though.

"Later, Gai. See you in the finals!" Obito said, lightly punching the much stronger genin's shoulder.

"I hope to see you later in this exam as well, Obito-san! And you, Rin-san, and Keisuke-san!" And then he was gone.

I could only assume that anyone who pissed Kakashi off was Obito's new best friend or something.

"At this point," Sensei told us quietly, "Kakashi and I will have to leave you three here. If you pass the Second Exam, we'll be waiting for you at the end. If you don't…" Here, he winked, "Yamaguchi-sensei will see you in the hospital."

Obito made a face. "Sensei, don't you have any faith in us?"

Rin said, "I do." It made Obito blush.

I sure as hell didn't. But I kept my mouth shut.

"Kei-kun?" Sensei asked.

I could feel my teammates' eyes drilling into me.

"What the hell." I said. "Let's get started."

Rin and Obito gave a whoop and headed toward the line.

Then Sensei disappeared. Kakashi was still there, though.

Kakashi made a chuffing noise that might have been a scoff or a laugh, and said, "Don't make me have to come in there and rescue you from all the _bugs_ in the second stage."

"Why, Kakashi, you almost sound like you care." I said flatly. I spread my arms out wide. Funnily enough, I still had more reach than he did. "Hug for good luck?"

Kakashi made a face. "Not on your life."

I stuck my tongue out at him.

And then he was gone. Stupid chūnin tricks.

Okay then.

"Name?" Raidō said, once I got to the front. He didn't bother looking up.

"Gekkō, Keisuke."

"All right. Seat sixteen in room 115. Get going."

I didn't actually leave until I was sure my teammates had gotten out of the crowd okay. Call me crazy, but I _really_ didn't want to see anything happen to them before stuff got serious.

"You don't need to hover, Kei-senpai." Rin said.

"The hell I don't." I said.

"Let's just get going before we get demerits for being late or something." Obito said, and ushered us kunoichi along.

"So, what seats did you get?" Rin asked us, once we were out of earshot of the assistant chūnin mob.

I replied, "Sixteen. You?"

"Forty-seven." Obito said.

"Four." Rin concluded. "We've been split up."

Thank the gods that Obito had only been cursed with a short attention span. I don't think I could have taken it if he'd also had a terrible sense of direction.

(Speaking of which, my sense of direction had actually gotten better since I had been reincarnated. Mostly because, now, I oriented myself by finding the strongest friendly chakra signature and heading _that way_, depending on the circumstances. It was like being a human-shaped homing pigeon.)

Anyway, we made our way to the room. It was on the first floor of the building, as the number implied, and…going by the way the rooms were numbered, it wasn't going to have any windows. It kind of reminded me of my old university building, where about half the rooms were built into the side of a hill. Only…there weren't any hills in Konoha proper.

And, just to make things better, I could feel my chakra reserves depleting at a steady, if slow, rate.

The trick, which I always knew had to be there, started with the seat placements. Going by the general Konoha philosophy of "Teamwork Conquers All"—which was the sort of thing that, while safe and reasonable in my old life, was repeatedly shown to be bullshit by the _Naruto_ series proper—it made sense for most teams to stick together. Group work, group planning, group action, and occasional group punishment or annihilation. Go, team.

That did not seem to be the sentiment they were promoting today, exactly.

Add in the chakra drain, probably courtesy of a female kikai insect that had crept onto me at some point in the previous few minutes, and it looked like a stress-test was in order.

If the pattern held true from what I'd seen, this would be a test of resolve.

At least, I hoped so.

I hate pop quizzes. Forever and ever.

Anyway. We got to the room, we went to our assigned seats, and sat down. I think the room had enough space for about a hundred and twenty entrants, which left our crowd with plenty of room between each participant.

If this was anything like the Chūnin Exam that would take place fifteen years in the future, we'd have to have some kind of plan for possibly cheating our way out of the majority of the pressure. Teams that had successfully answered nine of Ibiki's "ten" questions then could have been reasonably certain that they could face any hypothetical tenth scenario, even if most of them had to cheat to do it. I was, for my part, reasonably sure that Rin and I could answer most of the questions just because we'd been extremely good students before. That was probably our saving grace—neither of us had any extra skills that made cheating a viable option, and Obito hadn't gained access to his Sharingan yet. As far as a covert team—at least in terms of gathering information in a rigorously scrutinized area with no real preparation time—went, we were sorely outclassed.

I'm pretty sure I could have snuck past chūnin with judicious use of Transformation, Clone, and Camouflage Jutsu, though.

Shibi Aburame stood at the front of the room, even though I was pretty sure none of us had actually seen him enter at all and he _definitely_ hadn't been there when we started.

"Welcome to the First Exam," Shibi said, in his barely-audible way. Everyone had to shut up—even if it was by force—just to hear what he was saying.

"Why can't he speak up?" someone next to me muttered, and I turned my head to spot Genma Shiranui taking up space to my left, flicking a senbon from one side of his mouth to the other every few seconds.

I sighed internally and let my head drop onto the desk. I didn't get anything _like_ enough sleep the previous night.

I'm absolutely sure Shibi said something about cheating. Though I can't recall what. All I really remember about those first few minutes involves how sleepy I was, and how the walls didn't quite seem to be lining up with how I understood dimensions.

Wait.

**_Release!_**

It was getting really, really annoying to find out how many genjutsu could sneak right past my defenses.

Though… Oh hell. The walls weren't moving because I'd been poisoned with a hallucinogen, or because of a genjutsu—_those were camouflaged kikai insects_.

I don't have much against bugs, personally. Like, I've never been stung by a bee or had much worse than mosquito bites. But that's small peanuts compared to waking up one day and realizing that the entire room is covered from floor to ceiling in bugs.

Around me, everyone else seemed to be realizing the problem in a sort of ninja version of the Wave. Basically, one genin would freak out, followed by the closest neighbors, and so on. Mostly, the kunoichi seemed to be having the most dramatic reactions, sans Rin and the Hyūga girl (while Obito made up for them both with his enthusiastic flailing), but no one was taking it stoically.

Except the proctor, who commanded said bugs.

Shibi waited for us to quiet down before saying, "…Finally, if you cannot perform in an environment within which your opponent holds all the cards, you might as well roll over and die."

Cheerful thought.

"You may begin your test."

Speaking of which, the tests arrived on the backs of several large kikai-variant insects. Most kikai weren't longer than the length of a fingernail, but these…I guess they might have been soldiers or something. Anyway, no one was dumb enough to squash them once the sheets were delivered. Not only was that bad manners (since there was an Aburame in the room), it was also pretty liable to get someone drained of all their chakra (since there was an Aburame in the room). Maybe a foreign team might have flipped out, but Konoha genin knew better, apparently.

After all that, I still wasn't exactly sure there was a sleep genjutsu in the room at all. Maybe I just needed to invest in a white noise generator or something.

Too bad I couldn't handle coffee as a kid.

I scanned the questions, thanking the kikai insects that were handing out pencils under my breath. No need to antagonize the chakra-eating monsters while I didn't have all that much to start with.

_Describe the strategies used by the Second Hokage during the first three months of the First Shinobi World War. _

That was easy. The term I'd have used in my old life was a "Fabian strategy," which basically amounted to tracking down and eliminating the scouts and/or foraging parties of a larger enemy force, never directly engaging the opposition while nonetheless wearing them down. A war of attrition, in a larger conflict that had put Konoha up against the superior militaries of Kumogakure and Iwagakure (though not their full might) as well as that of Sunagakure—at the time, we couldn't afford anything else.

And yet we were still alive. Go us.

Hm.

_Name the four chokepoints used by…_

Basically, there was a lot of history.

_If a kunai is thrown from point [x] to point [y] while the target is moving at a rate of [z] k/h_…

And the kind of math that made me wish I had a calculator.

_Name the second principle of medical ninja regulations as handed down by Tsunade of the Sannin…_

And some stuff I was pretty sure a genin wouldn't know solely because genin didn't specialize to the same degree that chūnin did.

**Obito isn't going to know any of this.**

But Rin would.

I'd have killed for access to, say, the Shadow Possession Jutsu. That way I'd be able to help Obito and Rin out as needed.

But nope.

I wrote down all of my answers, at least. Yay, progress.

For the rest of the time, though, I decided to take a nap rather than get caught blatantly trying to help Obito or Rin cheat. Anyway, Rin would have to turn around, which was also hilariously blatant and therefore completely not going to happen.

It'd have been easier if I could somehow…I don't know, translate chakra and ping my answers off Obito's head or something. This would only have worked if several breakthroughs in the name of chakra communication and Obito's brain happened in the next couple of minutes.

Or if I'd reinvented Morse code ahead of time.

Or if Obito was a Yamanaka, I guess.

About five minutes until the end, everyone was starting to sweat bullets if they hadn't already. Next to me, Genma had tried to cheat off me twice (to no avail, because I was drowsing literally on top of my test sheet, which was face-down, besides), while I could sense a variety of chakra techniques being used to gather information. While we didn't have the Suna genin in this exam, and the only Aburame was the proctor and not the examinee, we still had our share of inventive cheating techniques.

The Byakugan was in use, of course, as was something involving the mirrors on the ceiling. I think someone might have been casting a genjutsu on their teammate to get a message across that way, too.

Actually…

**How about Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique?**

The Dreamer knew the hand seals for it (snake, rat), and I was pretty sure I could control the images my teammates saw…

Pretty sure. Not exactly. I wish I'd remembered to get someone to "teach" me the technique, because frankly the seals and the name of the damn thing weren't enough to go on. I'd only seen it used once, before my reincarnation, and that had been to expose one of Sakura's then-worst nightmares (as seen through the lens of a jōnin Kakashi with zero reason to take her seriously).

It ended up being something of a moot point, because that was about the time I felt an _actual_ genjutsu settle over the entire room.

This time, I was ready for it. So was the Dreamer.

**_Release_****.**

And then I cast outward with my chakra sense, searching for the likeliest source as well as checking the status of my teammates.

It didn't quite feel like something Shibi would be willing to do, but I couldn't dismiss the possibility that Kōbai had once again stepped in on his fellow proctor's behalf. Rin had dispelled the genjutsu near-instantly, going by the way her chakra was moving smoothly and without agitation compared to, say, Genma's.

I guess genjutsu wasn't his specialty. Either that or the pressure really was getting to him.

On the other hand, though, Obito's chakra was moving oddly and I was pretty sure he was stuck in the illusion.

While area-affecting genjutsu were rare, as well as expensive to maintain, I think that the variant we were being hit with was self-sustaining once it had a hook in the victim's chakra coils. Obito, having somewhat terrible control and lower awareness of his chakra's feel, might have been more vulnerable than Rin or I.

There are, technically, two ways to dispel a genjutsu. One: Disrupt your own chakra. Usually, that's where the whole chakra flaring dispel technique comes from, though suppressing it works just as well. Two: Disrupt your opponent's chakra, usually by inflicting pain.

There was a third way, though. Sort of. It's really more of a variation of the first, and has a range limited by chakra supply. I was already operating under the strain of a constant kikai drain, as well as the understanding that chakra flaring was _hard_. Basically, if the normal two methods were analogous to either pulling a fishing hook out or snapping the line, this one involved reaching out and pulling the hooks out of someone else.

And chakra, outside of the body without a specific shape, was a _bitch_ to maintain.

But I wasn't going to let Obito get beaten down by something like that.

**Here, let me help.**

The Dreamer's chakra was all yin-aligned—spiritual stuff, genjutsu stuff, and maybe something involving clams.

Anyway, we reached out with our shared pool of yin-aligned chakra, which was a lot deeper than I'd expected after only nine and a half months, and basically slapped the genjutsu out of Obito's chakra coils.

I am absolutely sure that the Hyūga girl knew exactly what I was doing.

Funnily enough, Obito didn't. While his chakra was back to normal, he did spend a good few seconds being rather nervous about something.

Oh well. I'd let him know later.

Three minutes left.

I drew a rather crappy sketch of a pug stuck on a tire swing on the back of my test. Not because I was bored, exactly, but…okay, yeah, I was bored and impatient and it'd been ages since I had a chance to draw something silly.

The pug looked kind of like Pakkun. Only fat.

**Ehehehe.**

Anyway, the test ended. I think maybe half of the participants had therefore spent five minutes under genjutsu, without anyone to dismiss it for them or the training to recognize the problem. Then whoever had cast it—probably Kōbai—finally let up.

There was a lot of blinking and general "oh my god did I really leave the last three questions blank" going on.

"The testing period has concluded. Please place your pencils on the desks—my partners will retrieve them as well as your tests." Shibi said when the genin finally managed to focus on him. "And now, you will face your true test."

There was a bit of a hubbub at that. Test? What test? Weren't we already in one?

(Also, about twelve people had been disqualified for excessively obvious cheating while I wasn't paying attention. I'd guess that at least three of them were chūnin plants, though, because their chakra coils felt different than most of the others'.)

I levered myself up so the kikai insects could take my test and pencil away, and then propped my head up on the heels of my hands. _This could go any of a dozen ways…_

"Perhaps some of you have already noticed." Shibi went on, quietly. "Are you quite certain that the teammates you came into this room with are the same ones here now?"

Oooh, sneaky. Anyone without some genjutsu experience would be reeling from the lost time, while everyone who _wasn't_ could be under suspicion of being a spy. After all, Shibi still hadn't given us permission to talk without losing _more_ points.

Having been perfectly cognizant the whole time, I could state that, in fact, no one had actually moved around the room at all. No genin, and no chūnin. And yet, aside from the Byakugan, there was no way to be _sure_ about that without being a sensor.

And sometimes even then. After all, the Zetsu clones had made a mockery of security during the Fourth Shinobi World War.

"Those teams that attempt to move on from here may attempt to correctly answer the tenth question." Shibi said. "But if you pass, and your trust is misplaced, you risk bringing a spy along to the next Exam." I wondered if he was smirking behind his collar. "Leave now, and you will have a chance to take the exam again next year—it would be rather difficult to do so after your traitor has dropped you directly into an enemy ambush in hostile territory."

Ergo, half the training fields in Konoha. I swear we weren't consciously trying to kill off our genin, though sometimes it seemed like criminal neglect. Shit happens.

Shibi gave us a few minutes to process that.

Someone—a chūnin plant to breach the dam—said "I'm out." And he was escorted to the door by a swarm of kikai, along with his team. The insects actually seemed to be there to guard them from any attacks from the rear. After that, teams started dropping like—well, pardon the pun—flies. By the end, there were only sixteen teams left in the room.

Meanwhile, I was wrestling over which option was the right one. What was the lesson here? Trust in your comrades, or take time off to beat a potential spy for information? The latter, while significantly less child-friendly, was probably more practical.

Again, it came down to ideals.

I looked at Rin, who gave me a faint smile despite her nervousness.

I turned around in my seat and looked at Obito, who looked a little green around the gills.

I tried to smile for his sake, though my stomach was doing crazy flips.

**While, technically, we can afford to screw up here, I'd really prefer if we didn't. **

_That makes two of us._

Fuck it. I'd see this through. The worst they could do was make us take a year off from this examination bullshit, which was something we kind of desperately needed anyway. I turned back to the proctor.

Shibi turned his head slightly from side to side, examining us. "…So much naïveté."

Not a good sign.

I gulped.

"…No one else will take the practical route?" Shibi asked.

No one said anything.

"I see." Shibi sighed. "In that case, you are now qualified to take the Second Exam."

"What?!" Obito shouted. "But what about the tenth question, or the spy?"

Shibi gave Obito such a long, considering look that he started to squirm in his seat. Then the Aburame adjusted his shades and said, "There was never a tenth question. Or a spy. The goal was to see who of our current class of aspiring chūnin would be willing to trust in their teammates for the foreseeable future. Without trust and teamwork, there is no team. There are simply overworked and underpaid shinobi with no loyalty, and will collapse under pressure.

"We cannot afford to be so divided." Shibi said bluntly. "In war, we will either band together or die alone—we are _not_ the most military powerful village, and it is only our trust in our comrades and the strength of our bonds that will keep our village strong.

"Remember that."

Someone had taken Sakumo Hatake's lesson to heart.

"And the genjutsu?" I spoke up, frowning. Not that I'd even seen anything in it…

"A cheap trick designed to play on your fears." Shibi explained. "Suspicion and paranoia may characterize some shinobi for their whole careers, but you cannot afford to allow yourself to be ruled by fear." His insects buzzed against the walls. "That way lies madness."

…I _hate_ this time period.

"But—!" someone began, but Shibi shook his head.

"Spies are a fact of life." Shibi told us. "But look to your friends and comrades here. Know their faces. Their habits. Their pasts. Trust in your team, and they will bring you home."

…I still hate this time period. Just a little less so.

"Dismissed. You will be meeting Yūhi-san in the auditorium for your Second Exam."

Needless to say, we kind of stampeded out of there.

"How did you know it wasn't real?" Obito asked once we were out of earshot of pretty much everyone.

"Um, I'm sensitive to genjutsu." I said. "Also, I thought the walls were literally closing in, which…was kinda funny. Not funny 'ha-ha' but more funny 'oh shit.'"

"Same here, sort of." Rin said. "Only I was focusing on the leaves…"

There had been leaves? And here I got the pot hallucinations, which had turned out to be totally real.

Obito flushed. "Oh, I…didn't really see any of that. I mean. It just kinda ended. Out of nowhere."

"Yeah, that was me." I told him. He blinked. I explained, "I've never done a ranged dispel before, but I think I got it right. Right?"

"Oh, uh. Yeah." Obito mumbled.

"What'd they make you see?" I asked.

Obito was quiet for a strangely long and incredibly awkward moment.

"Obito?" Rin tried.

And then, nearly so quiet as to be a perfect mimicry of Shibi Aburame, "I saw you die."

…What, exactly, was I supposed to say to that?

"It wasn't real, though." Rin said. "And we're fine!"

"Yeah, but I thought it wasn't real because I saw that Kei was fine earlier and then the proctor was talking about a spy and…uh. Yeah. Not my best moment." Obito said.

"Wait, just me?" I asked, frowning. "Because I thought for sure that it'd be both of us."

Either that meant that Obito thought I was a more likely candidate for a kill-and-replace scenario than Rin, or I needed to invest in anti-paranoia meds.

"No." Obito said.

"Maybe it's because you two have been teammates longer?" Rin suggested, though she didn't sound sure of herself.

"…I dunno." I said. "But we're wasting daylight." I did _not_ want to dwell on this when there were faces that were going to need beatings in a few minutes.

Unspoken…well, let's just say I was glad it was a vision of _me_ dying and not Rin. No telling what would happen there.

Or rather, I would really prefer if the possible consequences for _that_ stayed in Pandora's box for a while longer.

* * *

**A/N:** Guess what? School's on. X_x

And writing this chapter was like pulling teeth.


	32. Phase Two Begin

We ended up heading back to the same room we'd started out in, since I guess there was really only so much you could do to shuffle forty-eight genin around. And yeah, there really were a full forty-eight of us, from the ages of nine—my team, as well as Team Asuma (since I had no idea who their sensei was)—to fifteen or sixteen. No sensei groups running around, though—Raidō was there, with a bunch of other chūnin assistants. I kind of wondered if there was some…faculty room solely for the jōnin who were waiting for their students to get their asses in gear.

Hm. I suppose if I ever got that far, I'd find out.

Anyway, Kōbai Yūhi was on the stage again, saying, "The Second Exam will take place in one hour at Training Ground Forty-Four. All paperwork and registration will be completed on-site at the time of entry." He glared out at all of us. Tardiness will not be tolerated. There will be no late entrants."

…I was starting to get the feeling that Kakashi only got away with half the shit he did either because Kōbai Yūhi was dead in the future, or because he was just that good. Sort of like Gai, but not.

Anyway, as the crowd thinned out, we of Team Minato filed out as well.

"That…could have gone worse, but it could have gone better, too." I said.

"It's not like we had any ridiculous cheating skills." Obito pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, but it'd've been nice to be able to get more of a read on the other teams before we got shoved into the Forest of Death." I replied.

"…The Forest of Death?" Rin asked.

"It's a nickname." I said as we walked. Obito was to my right, with Rin on his. We were kinda flanking the only guy on our team for some reason I really couldn't name. "It's a training field that's about twenty kilometers across, with a river running through and a tower in the middle. Mom said it's where they usually hold the Chūnin Exams. Or, well, the survival test part of it."

Okay, so Mom never said that, but I was a busybody and could see (a version of) the future. I had connections that I had totally made up myself.

**Or made up ****_of_**** ourselves, perhaps.**

"How bad can it be?" Obito sounded like he'd _like_ to scoff, but wasn't quite managing it. The genjutsu must have shaken him up pretty badly.

"Three words: Three-meter centipedes."

We all shuddered.

"Who—why do people even _have_ things like that? Because you can't tell me that having a huge forest full of super-bugs is a good idea." Obito complained. "We could just, say, burn the whole thing down and start over without the huge bugs and whatever else's in there."

**That'd be like the Spartans handing one of their recruits a free meal, with no killing or cheating or stealing required. Too easy.**

I hated the whole ninja way of life sometimes.

"I think Training Ground Zero is like that." I said, thinking of what amounted to killer wildlife—the kind that was totally trained to be killer wildlife. Boxing kangaroos and stuff. The only reason they were all still alive was because someone at some point had said, "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE POOR ANIMALS."

(Personally, I thought that any animal that could beat a chūnin down probably needed a hitai-ate and a place in the chain of command, but that was just my opinion.)

So, no one technically trained there. It was a wildlife preserve.

Rin blinked. "We have a Training Ground Zero?"

I nodded. "It's only called that because no one uses it. Ever."

"Bah. If you want to train and there aren't any public fields open, just come over to the Uchiha district." Obito said, interlacing his fingers behind his head. "No one's ever in the one near my house."

"Aw, I might just take you up on that someday. Just to see your stupid cousins' faces." I poked Obito in the side, making him flail around. Like a lot of kids, Obito was ticklish. Horribly so. It was also completely hilarious.

"Kei, don't do that!" Obito whined, having slapped my hands away.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "When am I gonna get a chance to tease you in the exam zone? Never! So I'm preparing."

Obito made a face.

"Kei-senpai, stop picking on Obito." Rin said. "You're supposed to be the team leader now, and you have a responsibility to be professional."

I thought about that. I really did.

"Nope." I said, and slung one of my arms around Obito's shoulders. God, the kid needed to damn well start growing or I was gonna be the biggest kid on Team Minato and be able to pull off being a boy forever and that would be_ tragic_. "Professional shit is for Kakashi, and he isn't here. So clearly, I need to forge my own leaderly path."

"'Leaderly' isn't a word." Obito said bluntly, though he didn't push me away.

"It's a word if people say it enough." I replied. "And anyway, do you feel picked-on, Obito?"

"I feel like an armrest."

"So, you feel like me? Because I am Sensei's favorite armrest."

"Maybe Minato-san shouldn't use you two as armrests." Rin said.

"I dunno, I'd do it if I was taller." I said.

"Me too."

"…What happened to 'treat others as you'd want to be treated'?" Rin demanded. Oh, we were terrible. Together and separately.

Obito shrugged with some difficulty, since I was still hanging off him. "I dunno, if I had a bunch of tiny bratty students I don't think I'd be all that interested in pretending they were my height if they weren't."

I added. "Which is not, technically, about height and more about the fact that they'd be brats."

"Pretty much." Obito concluded.

Rin gave us both a funny look. "Okay, I _know_ I wasn't there for a lot of your training, but you really are acting in sync a lot now."

Yay! That meant we could probably fight someone on a higher level than us for a while and not die. Most likely, anyway, since we hadn't tested our coordination in a real fight yet.

You know that episode of _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ where Shinji and Asuka have to play a _DDR_ clone for hours? Just to get their attacks to sync up so they can destroy that weird twinning angel? Yeah, our lives had been a lot like that whenever Sensei got us to specifically practice pair fighting.

Well, we'd see how that would work out.

Anyway, it took us less than fifteen minutes to get to the "main" entrance of the Forest of Death. A bunch of genin teams had gotten there before us and were spread out all over the place, filling out wrongful death waivers and things like that. I managed to grab three separate sheets for us, which we filled out less because we actually thought we were going to be dying and more because they wouldn't let us into the damn place without them.

(Well, I'm sure Orochimaru would have, but he wasn't a proctor and the point was therefore moot.)

"Welcome to Training Ground Forty-Four. I will be the head proctor of your examination today, and as such, I will explain the rules." Kōbai had, once again, somehow found a podium thing. At least, he was standing on top of _something_, even if the crowd was a bit too thick to see exactly what. I like to think it was a soap box.

"This is another dual-purpose exam, as I'm sure you've come to expect by now. Behind me is the entrance to Training Ground Forty-Four, colloquially known as the Forest of Death. Once inside, you will be fighting for your lives against the hostile environment. In addition, you will be attempting to secure one of these." Here, he held up a scroll that was marked with the kanji for _Heaven_ and painted with two colored bands—deep, dark red. "There are two scrolls of each color, with eight colors total. One Heaven, and one for Earth. In order to advance to the next round, you must find the scroll of the opposite denomination _in the same color as yours_, and open them at the same time as the other team. The team with the opposite scroll will be your deadly enemies for the duration of the five-day span of the exam."

Okay. A matching game as played by ninjas. God, we were terrible and my brain was incredibly so.

"Once opened, the scroll will summon a special jōnin proctor for your match—and without being witnessed defeating the opposite team, you will not advance." He flipped the scroll over. "All team members must be healthy enough to complete the mission by the time any team makes their final run at the tower. Teams with incapacitated or dead members will not be allowed to advance." He went on sternly, "Opening the scrolls before encountering the opposite-denomination team will result in immediate disqualification. Leaving the examination area during the five-day period will result in disqualification. Arriving at the tower without the two colored scrolls and one victory scroll, from the proctor summoned to your match, will result in disqualification. Attacking a proctor will disqualify the entire team."

The scroll vanished into thin air. "And, finally, teams that fail to either arrive at the central tower or complete their mission objectives at the end of five days will be disqualified, with a complimentary corpse hunt taking place during the day after the exams." He shrugged. "Though by that point, I fully expect that there won't be anything left to find other than bones. If that."

"So," I said to Rin as Kurenai's dad (or, at least I thought he was Kurenai's dad) went on to talk about the entry gates, "what do you think about taking care of the combat part as soon as possible?"

"I say we need a plan." Rin said firmly.

The chūnin were directing people over to booths so we could be assigned a scroll color and kanji. I kind of wanted to hold back, since I had no idea what we were going to do in order to beat the crap out of another team if they turned out to be way more powerful than we were. Other than, you know, fight as hard as we could. The whole sanctioned match thing really threw a wrench in the idea of having traps and things set up in advance, which seemed counterintuitive to the whole ninja thing.

I frowned, thinking over how much stuff Sensei had packed into those sealing scrolls for me. "…Maybe we need to take inventory first."

"Hey, Kei, Rin-chan." Obito broke in, watching the other teams. "I think the Hyūga girl is…yeah, she's looking at everyone with her Byakugan."

Oh. I hadn't thought of that, but it would make a lot of sense to have a Byakugan user figure out who had the relevant scroll so her team could target the one that was actually relevant to their goals.

**Don't just coo over how awesome it is. Can we do anything similar?**

That, I didn't know.

"Obito, how good is your eyesight?" I asked.

"Um, probably better than average." Obito hedged.

"Well, then you try to figure out who's carrying the other scroll, once we get a color." I said. "I'm pretty sure my vision's terrible."

A lie. My vision _before_ had been an unmitigated crippling weakness, complete with an effective range of…two and a half inches. At _best_. Barring glasses, contact lenses, or a surgical rearrangement of my eyeballs, anyway. It wasn't bad in my new life, since I obviously didn't need corrective lenses, but I was still pretty sure Obito's was better.

"So, we're planning on going after them right away?" Rin asked in an undertone as Obito scanned the crowd.

At the thought of spending more than a few days in the Forest of Death, I winced almost imperceptibly. "Our weakness is endurance, compared to the rest of the genin. And field experience. We can't afford to be stuck out there fighting animals for days on end."

Rin pressed her lips together in a tight frown.

I just hoped that we ended up fighting someone who wouldn't kill us all if they won.

Anyway, we ended up with a green-bound Heaven scroll. I still wasn't sure who had the Earth counterpart, but at least we were kind of prepared for the idea of having to duel for dinner later. Granted, sixteen genin teams in, what, three hundred and fourteen square kilometers wasn't exactly a _crowded_ situation, but the forest was a minefield whatever way you looked at it.

"A chūnin will escort you to your starting gates. When the siren sounds, you may enter and begin your test." Kōbai told us all. "Good luck, and good hunting."

He poofed away, leaving us genin to be escorted around the perimeter of the forest. It was a pretty tense walk, all told, and took about twenty minutes of shinobi-style running to get away from all the other teams heading around the same way. Then we were there. It all seemed to be moving too quickly.

My hands were shaking, so I clenched them into fists and stuck them in my pockets.

**At least our first opponents probably won't be human.**

_Not helping_, I thought.

"I think," Obito began as the chūnin left us at our gate, "we might be looking out for either Gai or Asuma's teams. It was a little hard to make out, though."

"It's a good start." I told him seriously. "Good job, Obito."

Obito flushed a little, and Rin said, "Have you ever met them before, Kei-senpai?"

"Probably? I don't really remember. Asuma's one of the Hokage's sons, though, and I know he has Kurenai Yūhi on his team. I think we might have been in the same kunoichi class." Come to think of it, I really hadn't bothered to associate with or befriend many people in school other than Rin and Obito. I sure hoped Hayate was being more sociable than I had been.

"There's those two, yes, but there's also Ibiki Morino." Rin frowned. "I don't really remember much about him specifically, but he's not a pushover."

"You mean he's creepy." Obito corrected.

"No, he's pretty strong, too."

"I guess we're not the youngest team in the Exam, at least." I muttered. I was pretty sure that Ibiki hadn't actually been on the same team as Asuma and Kurenai in my visions, but…well, we were all about the same age and apparently none of us had been killed. Maybe there was more team shuffling going on than I thought.

Putting loads of kids under the age of ten on the same genin teams for a Chūnin Exam seemed kind of stupid to me, though.

Hypocritical, I know, but I also happened to think that Sensei was making a major mistake even giving us the option of taking the exams.

The siren sounded, cutting off any further team speculation.

And we were off.

I want to just reiterate this before the games begin: I _hate_ camping. I can appreciate nature just fine without having to risk getting eaten by tigers by sleeping in what amounts to a blasted Hot Pocket wrapper. If I want to sleep outdoors, I damn well sleep in a tree to avoid ground-bound predators and traps and people's feet. Also, there's more comfy moss and fewer rocks the farther up you go in a decent Hashirama tree, which is nice.

We didn't end up meeting any teams the first day.

To be perfectly honest, the forest was enough of a problem.

I mean, I sure sensed all sorts of chaos and as people got used to the whole issue of _Oh god this place is actually actively trying to kill us_. Some of the trees were scarred from old battles, with kunai and shuriken rusted right into the bark and huge chunks of wood just plain _missing_ from a few of them. We ran past a skeleton entangled in tree roots, then doubled back to see if we could salvage any of his equipment—the answer was no, by the way. We fished a little, until some explosions got a little too close for comfort and we had to leg it back into the trees. I think I woke up that night with screams ringing in my ears, sounding like someone must have basically tripped over a nest of those evil Konoha winged tree leeches (which are totally a thing, if you're stupid about campsites).

We slept in the high canopy, in shifts, and with enough ninja wire around our sleeping places to cut a man to chunky salsa if he ran into it fast enough.

It did mean that we fought with birds for space, but that was better than fighting for our lives.

On the second day, we spotted the Hyūga girl with her team far below, during the first couple of hours of daylight. They traveled in roughly the forest's understory, some thirty meters below us, and Obito shook his head when I looked to him to see if we should engage them. Given that their team blew right past us even though I was sure they'd seen us, I guess we didn't have the scroll they were out for. Even if Obito had it in his jacket, not a lot got past the Byakugan.

That was also the day we ran into Gai's team.

That thing about chunky salsa and ninja wire I mentioned before? Well, Gai almost reduced himself to ground hamburger.

He probably would have actually done it if Rin hadn't put one of his legs into a stasis mode—basically, it fell asleep on him and he fell and his face smacked into the wood about a foot short of what I mentally referred to as the "wood-chipper threshold." They got more finely rated the closer you got toward the actual sleeping boughs we were using.

"Hi, Gai-san." I said, watching Ebisu and Genma arrive a little after he did. No dynamic entries this time.

"Hello again, Keisuke-san! Hello to you as well, Rin-san, Obito-san." Gai said cheerfully, heedless of the fact that he'd almost been killed by accident.

"Hold still, Gai-san." Rin ordered, hands glowing green. While she reversed the damage, I turned to the rest of his team. Obito was above all of us, sitting on his heels on the underside of a tree branch, and I frowned briefly.

We were all in the right places to cause damage, even if we weren't actually ready for a fight to start. Close enough, right?

Genma reached into his jacket and pulled out his team's scroll. It'd be a challenge to beat him…

Wait.

"Our scroll's green, Shiranui-san." I said bluntly.

Genma glanced upward when neither Rin nor I produced it.

Obito scowled and unzipped the inner pocket of his jacket, dropping it into my waiting hand.

Green, to Team Genma's blue. Then I tucked the scroll away. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, black. Off by less than a quarter-turn of the color wheel. Just a few shades and we'd be at each other's throats inside of a minute.

"Guess we all got off lucky there." Genma said mildly. "Thanks for fixing Gai up, kunoichi-san." This last was directed at Rin. "Kid charges ahead too much."

"What technique are you using, Nohara-san?" Ebisu asked curiously.

Hey, at least the tension was mostly gone since we didn't actually _have_ to be enemies. In the immediate sense.

"Any luck?" I asked Genma, since apparently everyone else was fawning over Rin's cool jutsu.

"Not at all." Genma said, shrugging. "I did see a team get picked off, but by giant tigers. Not something everyone expects to run into out here. You?"

I had to admit that I wouldn't have really expected tigers either, mostly since I though the apex predators were bugs, but I just shrugged. "We haven't been looking as hard as we could be."

"Might want to consider it." Genma said. "Thing is, you can't pass without the other team at least living long enough to get their beating on record. Scavenging's not gonna cut it."

No kidding. The teams that failed were failing their enemies, too.

Fwip-fwip went the senbon in his mouth. "So…you might wanna track down the other team. Keep them alive long enough to get in a real fight. You're not gonna get anything done if all you do is hide up here in this nest of razor wire."

I had the strangest feeling that we'd probably have to do exactly that. "Thanks for the advice."

Genma shrugged. "No problem. It's not like we get points for beating you guys now."

Ha. Ha.

"Anyway. Gai, Ebisu, we're leaving. Gotta go find that other team sometime." Genma ordered. As the oldest genin, I guess that was really all he was there for.

"Of course, Genma-san! I have already recovered from my most unyouthful mistake, and will be ready for anything!"

Ebisu said something to Rin that I didn't catch, but since Obito just was frowning I guessed it couldn't have been _too_ bad. Really nasty stuff would have led to an instant fistfight. Then he straightened his shades and said, "Yes, captain."

Genma sighed. "Whatever, just get a move on."

I waved to them as they left. It felt kind of awkward, like someone had left me hanging without returning my high-five. Weird.

"So. What do you say to leaving the whole turtle strategy behind?" I asked.

"I was getting bored anyway, Kei." Obito said firmly.

"I wish Gai-san hadn't run off before I was sure I'd actually woken up all of those nerve endings." Rin mumbled, distracted.

…Yeah, I was just gonna leave that bit be. Hopefully their team made it out okay.

The next team we ran into was having trouble on day three. Technically, we probably hadn't needed to take such a long time to find them, but as group sensor and leader I had an obligation to make sure we didn't actually get into any fights we couldn't afford to. If anyone was in severe distress or there was some kind of huge fight going on, we probably couldn't risk actually intervening unless it was the team we needed to pass. We weren't strong enough yet.

The cold mathematics of survival.

That said, I still used chakra in my feet to cling to a branch long enough to slingshot myself into a direct line of interception with the newest group. I only sensed one team, which was somewhat better for our chances of living to see next Tuesday, but I wasn't at all willing to meet them on the ground until I knew who they were.

I was pretty sure that Team Asuma didn't have any sensors, but they might not have needed one.

Then their team shot past us, about fifty-some meters below, and I corrected myself. Whether they needed a sensor or not, having one might have helped.

"Rin-chan? Obito? Get ready for a fight." I said over my shoulder, looping around the branch. Pursuit mode, go!

"Which one do you want to take on?" Obito asked, frowning. "I think I might be able to take Asuma…"

"I'll go for Ibiki, then." I replied under my breath. "Rin-chan?"

"If I remember right, Kurenai-san was a genjutsu-type kunoichi." Rin said, glancing up at me. "Either one of us might be able to take her on and win."

**And maybe we'll finally see if you have any ****_actual_**** resistance to genjutsu**.

"Okay. I'll hold you to that." I began the descent, bouncing off trees with the practiced ease of someone who spent entirely too much time doing just that. It was a Konoha shinobi thing, I swear. We make better time through trees than on the ground.

The air rippled.

**Genjutsu. I've got this.**

The Dreamer, when not working in concert with me, uses a genjutsu-canceling method that feels a little like someone decided to take my nerves and chakra coils and twang them like a rubber band.

Highly annoying, but effective.

"That wasn't nice, Kurenai-san." Rin said as we finally landed within spitting distance of the other team.

All of us stuck the landing. I was absurdly proud for all of two seconds.

"It wasn't really supposed to be." Kurenai replied.

Kurenai Yūhi was a girl our age or so, with those distinctive red eyes that were, in defiance of all things rational, not actually a kekkei genkai of any type. She was really a cute girl, with a fair, round face and untamed black hair. She had a hitai-ate on her forehead, like she would as an adult, and dressed in a white-and-pink thorn-patterned dress that looked at least more practical than her adult version.

Then again, Kakashi apparently picked up a shuriken-patterned scarf and I knew that Rin had a dress with the same pattern in green, so maybe our team wasn't really fit to judge that kind of thing.

Kurenai's greatest advantage was her genjutsu.

"So, what color scroll did you guys get?" Asuma asked.

Asuma was a fairly big kid already—bigger than I was in the shoulders and in arm-span. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with a ninja mesh-lined black undershirt, along with black pants and a white belt, and had spiky black hair and sharp brown eyes. He was the Hokage's second child, and perhaps a little rebellious as a result despite being nine. I didn't see his signature trench knives anywhere, but I wasn't entirely certain where he'd first picked up their use in the timeline.

"Green." I said, holding it up.

"Ah." Asuma said. He glanced at the third member of their team.

Ibiki Morino was bigger than Asuma, despite the fact that he was probably only a bit older than we were. He had silver-gray hair stuffed mostly under a bandanna-style hitai-ate, like mine, and a rather defined jaw-line for a kid barely on the cusp of puberty. He wore one of those beige utility-style flak jackets—the sort we had for people who wanted the protection but weren't promoted yet.

The scroll was produced. It was green, too. Ibiki tossed it to Asuma, who held it up to mine.

"On the count of three, then." I said.

"Sure. One, two…"

On three, Asuma and I both flipped the scrolls open. I hurled my scroll across the clearing, away from Asuma's team, and Asuma followed suit with just a split second's hesitation.

_WHOMPH._

When the smoke cleared, there was a woman in the standard Konoha uniform with a huge dog standing there. She was at least ten years older than us, putting her at about Sensei's age, and had literally the wildest hair I'd ever seen. She looked downright feral, with Inuzuka tattoos on her cheeks and a distinctive wolf-eyed look I'd never seen on a human being before. I liked the little touches, though—lipstick and eye shadow, mainly. It was kind of like meeting the Joker and then realizing a second later that oh, it was only the Creeper. Not much of a downgrade in terms of scary, but at least you probably wouldn't die.

I guess that made the huge wolf-dog next to her—black and white, sort of like a Siberian husky—an Inuzuka soldier as well.

Damn, and I'd wanted a second to hug him. Irrational, I know, but dogs are pretty much my favorite animals.

"I'll be the proctor of today's match between…what's it say here…Team Minato and Team Sasukibe. Name's Tsume Inuzuka, special jōnin. And this here is my partner, Kuromaru." Tsume told us, in a tone that made me suspect that she was not the kind of woman anyone would be able to argue with. "There aren't really any huge rules, but me and Kuromaru will be stepping in if it looks like anyone's gonna die. Since you're dead if your teammates are down, we'll boot the losing team out of the exam area for free." She rolled a shoulder. "By the way, you can start anytime."

Us genin eyed each other speculatively. We were sizing each other up, trying to weigh pros and cons to each opponent.

"That means start _now_!" Tsume snapped, and we were jolted into action.

* * *

**A/N:** So, that's the long and short of it. Team Minato versus Team Sasukibe! Who will win?

(Yes, that is a _Bleach_ reference. That's all it'll be, though. Asuma, Kurenai, and Ibiki have an invisible sensei.)

Also, in Obito's flashback, Ibiki was originally placed on a team with Hayate and some guy called Tokara. Since Hayate is obviously not in this exam, that wouldn't have worked out. And meanwhile, Asuma and Kurenai were never given any team at all. So I smashed them all together and called it good-if you want, you could think of it like the intersection between Team Minato and Team Awesomeness. There's a lot of team shuffling.

AND NOW FOR REVIEW REPLIES.

Guest: Writing the last chapter was like pulling teeth because, while difficult to start to the point of taking several days simply to search for a hook, it wasn't actually that horribleonce I got going.

Ventress: Yes. School does suck. Horribly.

Also, to anyone else:

If you're wondering, I'm actually in my final year of my degree program in college while simultaneously trying to get into grad school. So if my updating schedule looks horrible, that's why.


	33. Phase Two Complete

The thing about combat? It's _fast_.

Unlike what movies and TV make it seem, any fight in real life is probably over in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Most people don't engage in hours-long drama-filled diatribes about their stupid tragic pasts while trying to beat the stuffing out of someone else. It's a terribly inefficient way to do things, only possible in the case of a hilariously lopsided power differential—and if you can beat your opponents that soundly, why bother? In fights where both sides were evenly matched, there wasn't time to stand back and shout about how Mommy and Daddy didn't love you enough.

We were exchanging blows before Kuromaru even got a chance to bark his assent.

I immediately leapt back away from the fight, while Ibiki took a swing with a kunai through the space where I'd been. Obito launched a two-meter-wide fireball down range, scattering their team, and Rin threw a tagged kunai into the resulting explosion before we all retreated.

Strike, retreat, regroup, strike…

The next thing anyone on Team Sasukibe saw was me, coming in low and nearly at top speed with my kodachi out and swinging. It took both of Asuma's hands to block me, which was something of a mistake.

I still had another hand, after all.

While Obito ducked around Kurenai's kunai throws and started lacing the battlefield with Uchiha-made ninja wire—which was, like steel wool, almost hilariously flammable—and Rin kept trying to get a hit in on Ibiki with her hands glowing green, I gave a savage grin.

While my right hand had swung my kodachi directly into Asuma's paired punch-knives, my other hand had been pulling my sturdy metal sheath in turn.

If Asuma didn't dodge, he would have avoided death by bisection only to get a broken rib as a consolation prize.

_Disengage, you punk. Or else eat Gekkō-style Leaf Kenjutsu: Double Tiger Strike._

I felt his chakra flare.

**_Replacement jutsu_**. The Dreamer confirmed it, at least.

Asuma exploded into smoke and I ended up launching a log across the clearing at Kurenai. Whoops?

She dodged, at least, and that was when Obito picked up the ninja wire again and improvised a trip-line. Rin was already there waiting, and Kurenai spun in midair to land a kick directly on Rin's crossed forearms. Then she bounced off, having shoved chakra toward her feet, and Rin was sent stumbling at least a meter back by the force of it.

And then I was there, the same time as Ibiki, and while Rin bounced off my back and toward the fight between Asuma, Kurenai, and Obito, I ducked under his swing and skidded across the dirt, aiming a knee at the inside of his knee.

He promptly screwed that plan over by stepping over me, but in the time he was only on one foot, I whipped around and aimed for his supporting leg with my other foot.

Goddamn it, I was gonna knock Ibiki on his ass if it took all day.

Then Obito crashed into the fight again, tussling more amateurishly with Asuma. Obito was on top, at least, but Asuma weighed more than he did and the second Obito lost balance he was going to get his face pounded in.

I tossed a few explosive kunai at Ibiki to drive him back, then grabbed Obito's jacket shoulder and _heaved_ just as Asuma swiped at him with the punch kunai.

"Careful." I said in Obito's ear, and he gave me a cocky grin that I completely agreed with. We could _do_ this.

"Rin-chan, Kurenai's up to you, okay?" Obito called. He kept his eyes on Asuma and Ibiki, who had finally recovered enough to group up normally.

"Right." Rin said, squaring off with the other kunoichi. One of Kurenai's arms wasn't moving correctly, which made me wonder if Rin had already used that odd stunning jutsu on her.

Obito and I exchanged looks. Rin would be fine, though we weren't necessarily so well off.

Well. Taking stock, our team was probably going to have some bruises, but everything else checked out. Team Sasukibe was a little worse for the wear, what with the burns since our team insisted on making everything explode. If I had to guess, I'd say that we were ready to go another ten rounds or so.

Except Kurenai. Rin was going to beat her just fine.

That said, Ibiki and Asuma were the heavy hitters to Kurenai's genjutsu support.

Well, time to put our teamwork to the test, then.

I charged, leaping at the last possible moment with my chakra slamming into the ground to give me just that much more speed.

Asuma had already seen my double-draw technique, and instead of a full block he tried to redirect my momentum. Not necessarily a bad plan, but that meant that he caught my knee with his shoulder at the same time that Obito ducked behind both of us and rolled. Where he went, Uchiha ninja wire followed. Ibiki wasn't as fast as any of us, but he whirled on Obito with a brand new weapon—a thin, collapsible blade he'd pulled out of one sleeve.

We were all too close together for him to get a real swing going, and Obito planted one hand on the ground and launched himself to the side, still trailing wire.

For my part, I'd knocked Asuma on his back on that run, but I skittered away and around the fight to regroup with Obito.

I flipped the scroll Sensei had given me into Obito's waiting hand.

"Oh, you're kidding me." Obito said in disbelief. "You had this the whole time?"

"Yep!" I said. "Though I don't have the slightest idea what's in it."

"Well, one way to find out." Obito said. He still had a bloody nose from his tussle with Asuma, and swiped the blood away with his thumb.

I moved forward again, channeling chakra into my feet for another hit-and-run.

I felt someone—probably Ibiki—try to place a genjutsu on me, but the Dreamer tossed it aside with a sharp, **Hands off, you jerk.**

Asuma approached from one side, Ibiki from the other. I don't know if they were expecting me to be a sitting duck, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let them get any free hits.

Asuma jabbed three times in rapid succession, but I redirected the first one and smashed his left arm aside with my sheath. Then I planted my sheath in the soft ground and leapt onto it, springing out of the way of Ibiki's combined shuriken/blade offense. I spun in the air and aimed another slash at his back, but he replaced himself with a log.

**There is a distinct lack of big jutsu in this**.

_We're kids_.

And then Obito broke the seal on the scroll.

Technically speaking, the only thing you should have in weapon scrolls is, well, weapons. Less sane ones are designed to launch their contents at a speed just short of "absolutely lethal," and are thus incompatible with most other contents. A lot of people therefore don't even bother with the things, and just pop a weapon out of a seal one at a time and toss them by hand. Even Tenten.

Someone must have forgotten to tell Sensei that, because the scroll disgorged enough camping equipment—tents, utensils, sleeping bags, packaged food, and canteens—for three people and fired everything the length of the clearing.

I was already in the air, at least. While I got a little tripped up and failed to stick my landing when a sleeping bag hit my foot, at least I didn't get mobbed by a bunch of tents like Asuma and Ibiki did. They'd cut their way out in a second, but I could probably knock at least one of them out before then.

"What the hell was that?" Tsume demanded, though I wasn't really listening.

"Obito?" I was about to punch Asuma in the head regardless of his answer, but I was still interested in hearing his opinion.

"You might wanna back up, Kei." Obito said.

Oh. Plan A was still valid, then.

I backed up.

"Good?" I asked.

"Good enough. Go help Rin out, okay?" Obito said distractedly. He was finally out of Uchiha-trademark ninja wire, but I'd handed over my allowance of explosive tags and he was already attaching them to kunai and wire and putting them everywhere in the time it took for Ibiki to resurface from under a tent. They were linked by plain wire, which could carry a chakra charge without exploding into flame, which was really the best part about it.

I checked the wires and the tags, briefly, before going over to see where Rin and Kurenai had gotten off to.

**Genjutsu, again**. The Dreamer reported, and my chakra shuddered.

And then, rather abruptly, Kurenai went tumbling past me as though flung there by a chakra-charged punch. I looked back in the direction she'd come from and saw Rin trying to massage feeling back into her fingers.

Rule one of genjutsu (or something like that): Dazing the user works just fine if you can't dispel it normally. I could, but Rin's intervention was nonetheless awesome.

"Got her?" I asked.

"Yep." Rin said, and her hands glowed briefly green to close her split knuckles. "Just like Akihito-shishō said, it's all in the timing."

"Sorry to leave you without backup against her, anyway. Though you got everything handled just fine." I said, but I was already thinking about the implications because I really didn't have the power to turn my brain off. My mouth, yes. The hamster wheel of my brain, no.

Exactly how good did you have to be in order to use Tsunade's super strength technique?

In a way, the version that Sakura ended up learning in the future wasn't precisely the full potential of the technique. While her strength was dependent on precise release of chakra at the time of impact, as opposed to the usual "hold it and hit them with it" technique that most shinobi used to enhance their muscles, Tsunade had been renowned for her immense strength _in general_. That was a woman who could crush rocks with her bare hands at age ten, and only got around to doing things like swinging Gamabunta's sword around long after that.

I wondered if that had to do with the Strength of a Hundred Seal and how it was designed.

Even the first stage had knocked Kurenai silly, so I guess that would have to be enough for now. Later, though, I'd have to ask Yamaguchi-sensei what he was teaching Rin. Then I resolved to ask Sensei for sealing lessons after the Exam was over. Not like Yamaguchi-sensei was interested in teaching me anymore.

"Ready, Kei!" Obito said in a maniacally cheerful sort of way as we joined him. We'd only been a few feet away, but it became clear that when Obito wanted to blow something up, he went all out.

Seriously. A good four meters around Team Sasukibe was a spider-web of two types of ninja wire, about fifteen kunai rigged to launch on hair-triggers, and all of my exploding tags.

"I'd suggest giving up, but that'd imply that you actually have a choice." I said to the boys, since Kurenai was either out or effectively out, sliding my kodachi back into its scabbard so I could put my hands on my hips in a dramatic fashion. "Give up and you won't explode."

"You're such a drama queen." Rin said under her breath.

"Like hell!" Asuma snapped, but then one of the wires twitched ominously, with a noise like a twanging piano wire.

Obito gave me a thumbs-up, though all of his fingers were occupied. In my opinion, anyway, it was a bad idea to have the chakra-reactive wires wound around his fingers, but…well, it wasn't my part of the plan anyway.

"We've lost, Asuma." Ibiki informed us all rather gravely. Then again, I was also pretty sure he was the smartest member of the team as it was. You didn't get to be the head of interrogation by age twenty-seven by being either a pushover or a moron. Sure, most of us didn't have our careers set in stone at age nine, but Ibiki had the makings of a survivor.

Or maybe I was looking too hard for something that wasn't even there yet.

Still, I didn't drop my guard. I'd been hit with three genjutsu inside of five minutes and not all of them had been Kurenai's.

"I'd have to agree there. Even if Yūhi wasn't out of it, you're up to our chins in razor wire, Uchiha flaming wires, exploding tags, and camping equipment. That Uchiha kid twitches wrong and everyone here gets blown into hilarious chunks." Tsume grinned. "Or if he does it right. Either way you're dead."

Asuma looked at Tsume, then at us. I could draw my blade any second, and Rin had proved that that field medic training gave her lightning reflexes. We were pretty good to go for anything like a round two. Meanwhile, of us, only Obito had used chakra-intensive jutsu, while Team Sasukibe had been throwing around genjutsu and replacements all over the place.

I didn't doubt that Asuma and Ibiki had more stamina than any of us, but we used our chakra more effectively. And if I had to punch Asuma in the nose with a chakra-enhanced fist to prove that point, I would.

"We…surrender." Asuma said at length, looking as though the words were literally painful to spit out.

"Good choice, Sarutobi." Tsume said. "Knew you were your dad's kid."

Asuma glared.

"Now, let's pick our way out of this maze and get your whole team to a medical station." Tsume continued, ignoring his pint-sized fury. "Mind if I clip a couple wires, Uchiha?"

"Yeah, that's cool." Obito said, already unwinding some of the less hopeless knots. "You don't need to worry about more than like, ten of them. Most of the tags are duds."

"_What?_" Asuma snarled. Not that I couldn't take him on my own, but I didn't feel like having him resent Obito forever and ever.

"My idea." I admitted. "Sensei wouldn't let us have more than about thirty tags between us, so I copied a crapton of them onto tracing paper and called it good."

It'd only taken me three nights to do it. And some of them were still kind of shitty-looking if you paid attention.

Tsume threw her head back and laughed. "Well done, kid! Gotta admit, that was pretty clever. They even smell real."

I shrugged. "I tried."

"Yeah, yeah. All right, Team Sasukibe! Time to get the hell out and let the tricky brats move on." Tsume ordered, clearly done with us. "Oh, and Team Minato gets a victory scroll." Idly, Tsume reached into her vest and pulled out a scroll without any colored borders. She tossed it at us, and Rin caught it. "Now get moving. The tower's a good ways away and there's a lot of trouble in between here and there."

They left in something of a lurch, since Tsume had Kuromaru carry Kurenai, but we didn't mind. We still had to gather up all of the wire everywhere and re-spool it. We also stuffed all of our scrolls into Obito's jacket, because he had bigger pockets.

"By the way, Obito, I lied." I said as we extracted the last tag.

Obito, taking the wire from me and winding it around the coil, said, "About what?"

"Technically, the tags I made are real." I explained.

Obito froze.

"Only they're kind of shitty. They're stable, though." I held one of the tags up, wrapping it around the handle of one of my kunai. I could spare it for a demonstration. "Probably wouldn't do more than burn your hair off if they got set off."

"So, wait, you made all these _working_ tags in less than three days?" Rin asked, frowning. "Why'd you tell us they were fake?"

"Because they're shitty tags and I didn't want you to be afraid to use them." I repeated. I held up the armed kunai. "Watch."

I slammed my chakra into the tag and hurled it across the clearing, where it imbedded itself point-first in a tree.

After about a quarter-second's delay, the kunai made a _crack_ noise and there was a lot of smoke.

And that was it. It might have scorched the linen wrapping of the handle, at most.

"See what I mean? They're distractions at best." I said, frustrated. "You need a load of chakra to activate them, they only make noise and smoke, they're on tracing paper, and I can _tell_ that I got the kanji wrong."

"They still work, though." Obito said. "I mean, a distraction in the right place is pretty good. When'd you start?"

"My dad used to make tags. I got one of his old designs out when Sensei didn't give us enough for the plan." I replied, suppressing the irrational flare of _hurt_ that had come with opening that old box. "Most people can't tell when a tag's been made badly or not under pressure."

Obito punched me in the shoulder, mostly to shock me out of my pity-party. "Hey! Don't get so down about things. We're halfway through the Chūnin Exams now because of those 'shitty' tags, so don't worry. We've got this in the bag."

"Speaking of which, we should probably get going before anyone else gets any ideas." Rin said, since we'd cleaned up.

"Yeah, okay. Too bad about the supplies, but I guess they sacrificed themselves for a worthy cause." I added, shaking off my malaise with a rough grin.

Obito shrugged and said, "Not like we used them anyway."

"True, but let's not tell Sensei that." I said. I shook myself to clear my head. "All right. It's still the second day, so teams won't be clustered around the tower just yet. Let's book it before they do."

"'Book it'?" Rin asked.

**Whoops**.

I waved a hand dismissively. "Beat feet, run like hell, _move out_, I don't care. Let's just go."

We did, thank god.

The run to the tower was, thankfully, mostly uneventful. To be honest, after a certain point, some shinobi just aren't worth intercepting if they're going fast enough. Our team wasn't one of them, but we had some of the principles down—presenting a small, constantly moving profile, and refusing to engage enemies unnecessarily. I took point again, leading us well around the other teams I could sense, and with Rin in the middle and Obito at the rear we were making pretty good time.

It was honestly kind of surprising when we made it to the tower in about twenty minutes.

Then again, with an effective speed of about twenty kilometers per hour and flinging ourselves around the canopy like a bunch of long-distance jumping monkeys on crack, perhaps it was really less unexpected than I thought.

I kicked the front door open and we scrambled inside.

It looked pretty much exactly the same way it would seventeen—maybe sixteen—years in the future. Aside from the metal stairs running up both sides and the massive statue with a poem on the wall over its head, the arena was pretty bare. Both the floor and ceilings were lined with square tiles, and I reached out with my chakra sense to confirm that there were, in fact, chūnin in the building somewhere. It'd suck to show up and then have wait around for so long.

"The poem on the wall…" Rin began, but I was pretty sure I didn't really care. The poem was essentially pointless if you knew enough about shinobi life already, and I was curious about the "victory" scroll.

**A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body.**

Wrong show, but you can see what I mean.

"Obito, can I see the thing we got from Tsume?" I asked, holding my hand out.

"Yeah, but I thought we weren't supposed to open it." Obito pointed out.

"I'm not sure anyone actually said that, but I figure if we're at the tower there can be exceptions." I replied, and broke the paper strip on the scroll.

Then I threw that sucker right across the room.

_BOMPH._

_Sparks from a busted wire…_

"Sup, Kakashi?" I asked, almost before the smoke cleared.

Obito made a sputtering sound and growled, "That bastard won't stop _following_ us!"

"How'd you guess?" Kakashi asked suspiciously, thunder stolen.

I grinned. "Sensor-type shinobi, remember? By the way, you totally left me hanging on that hug."

"One, you obviously didn't need whatever 'luck' you claimed you'd get from it. Two, if you haven't bathed in three days, _stay over there_." Kakashi snapped, backing up in case I didn't get the point.

Pfft. I _totally _stripped down to my skivvies in enemy territory to bathe.

_Not_. I like my blood where it is.

"Um, Kakashi-kun, what are you here for, exactly?" Rin asked, because Obito and I were off on tangents and needed to be redirected before we hurt ourselves.

"Tch." Kakashi jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder. "See that? How much do any of you brats understand about what it takes to be a chūnin?"

"Watch who you're calling a brat, Kakashi." I said, equally blunt. I crossed my arms. "It's simple enough. '_If your mind is lacking, hone your knowledge. If your body is lacking, hone your strength._' A chūnin has to be balanced in the shinobi arts, adaptable, and a squad leader on missions that, sometimes, will come with a high probability of death. You can't back down then, because your comrades are depending on you, and a shinobi carries their village with them on their shoulders."

Kakashi gave me a flat look. "Thank you for proving that you have basic reading comprehension skills."

Jackass.

"Welcome to the tower, anyway." Kakashi said dismissively. "You heard the speech, and now you get a chance to rest and recover since you made it two days before the deadline. Have fun with that."

"Yeah, no." I said, and managed to grab his scarf before he could poof away. "No. We are having a team dinner and you are cordially invited to _stick around_."

"Just let him go, Kei." Obito said, but I could be stubborn.

Kakashi had a pretty good glare, I'll give him that, but he didn't try to pull away. "And why should I do that?"

"Because I need to thank you."

I could practically hear the "_What?_" Obito said before he said it. Like an oncoming roll of thunder.

Kakashi said, "You don't need to thank me for pointing out the obvious."

"In that case, I really want to know how many genin know how to string together enough exploding tags to make a minefield in midair." I said. The fireballs and the other distractions had been my decision, but that first spark of an idea had been Kakashi's. "Look, Kakashi, just accept my gratitude and eat with us like a normal person. Unless you have some kind of urgent chūnin business?"

There. My olive branch. He offered one first, in his condescending way, but I could at least reciprocate that much in a more cheerful spirit than it was offered.

"Um." Rin began, making me glance at her. "Maybe it'd be best to get cleaned up and settled in first. We did just spend three days in the woods."

I blew out a sigh. "All right, Rin-chan, have it your way."

Rin beamed.

"How come you can get her to listen but I can't?" Obito asked Rin, probably because he thought I couldn't hear him.

Eh. I could really have gone for a bath, I guess. For like the next three hours, just to get all the forest gunk stuff out.

Acknowledging the inevitable, I let go of Kakashi's scarf. "So. Yes or no?"

Kakashi wound the shuriken-patterned mess of an accessory back around his neck. "…Fine. Only if you promise to leave me alone for the next two days afterward."

"Sure." I said.

And then we parted ways, with him poofing away and me taking off at a brisk trot. If I had to fight Obito or Rin for hot water privileges, I'd probably curl up in a corner and cry or something. If it was any other team, though, I'd fight them for it. I still had chakra to spare, for once.

Dinner was awkward as all get out, even with Obito trying to take a peek at Kakashi's face as we ate ramen. Kakashi was being his usual antagonistic self. Rin _might_ have been showing more interest than normal, but honestly? I was okay. I was almost happy. Everyone was alive, Sensei was probably going to visit on the fifth day, I wasn't nursing a concussion, and the most lethal part of the exam was over.

_Life is_, I thought as I downed another cup of tea, _pretty damn good_.

* * *

**A/N:** Between college and work I get the impression that life is trying to eat me.

Kei's sword techniques are heavily drawn from _Rurouni Kenshin_, because I am a sucker for 90s anime. Her quote, though, is from _Soul Eater._

Anyway, a big thank you to everyone who has clicked on, favorited, added alerts on, and _especially_ reviewed this story!


End file.
